{"doi":"10.1101/2024.03.20.585993","title":"Eukaryotic Elongation Factor 2 Kinase EFK-1/eEF2K promotes starvation resistance by preventing oxidative damage in <i>C. elegans</i>","abstract":"Abstract Cells and organisms frequently experience starvation. To adapt and survive, they mount an evolutionarily conserved stress response. A vital component in the mammalian starvation response is eukaryotic elongation factor 2 (eEF2) kinase (eEF2K), which responds to starvation by phosphorylating and inactivating the translation elongation driver eEF2, thus shutting down translation and facilitating survival. C. elegans efk-1/eEF2K phosphorylates EEF-2/eEF2 on a conserved residue and is required for starvation survival, but how it promotes survival remains unclear. Surprisingly, we found that eEF2 phosphorylation is unchanged in starved C. elegans , suggesting that efk-1 promotes survival via a noncanonical pathway. We show that efk-1 upregulates transcription of the DNA repair pathways, nucleotide excision repair (NER) and base excision repair (BER), to promote starvation survival. Furthermore, efk-1 suppresses oxygen consumption and ROS production in starvation to prevent oxidative stress. Thus, efk-1 enables starvation survival by protecting animals from starvation-induced oxidative damage through a translation-independent pathway.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2024,"id":495699,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9634,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1342159,"name":"Forum Bhanshali","orcid":"0000-0002-0571-9263","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1342484,"name":"Chiaki Shuzenji","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1302620,"name":"Tsultrim T. Mendenhall","orcid":"0009-0006-2009-9070","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":824747,"name":"Xuanjin Cheng","orcid":"0000-0002-2119-1788","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1342160,"name":"Pamela Bai","orcid":"0009-0005-5075-7663","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1342161,"name":"Gahan Diwan","orcid":"0009-0006-8306-2750","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1342485,"name":"Donna Seraj","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336771,"name":"Joel N. Meyer","orcid":"0000-0003-1219-0983","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240512,"name":"Poul H. Sorensen","orcid":"0000-0001-7447-2199","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":746198,"name":"Jessica H. Hartman","orcid":"0000-0002-9134-7469","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":295630,"name":"Stefan Taubert","orcid":"0000-0002-2432-7257","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":999127,"name":"Junran Yan","orcid":"0009-0003-6793-123X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":90,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:09:19.627139Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}