Ontogeny of alpha A and alpha B crystallin polypeptides during Rana temporaria lens development

Heat Shock Response and Heat Shock Proteins: Current Understanding and Future Opportunities in Human Diseases

The heat shock response is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism that protects cells or organisms from the harmful effects of various stressors such as heat, chemicals toxins, UV radiation, and oxidizing agents. The heat shock response triggers the expression of a specific set of genes and proteins known as heat shock genes/proteins or molecular chaperones, including HSP100, HSP90, HSP70, HSP60, and small HSPs. Heat shock proteins (HSPs) play a crucial role in thermotolerance and aiding in protecting cells from harmful insults of stressors. HSPs are involved in essential cellular functions such as protein folding, eliminating misfolded proteins, apoptosis, and modulating cell signaling. The stress response to various environmental insults has been extensively studied in organisms from prokaryotes to higher organisms. The responses of organisms to various environmental stressors rely on the intensity and threshold of the stress stimuli, which vary among organisms and cellular contexts. Studies on heat shock proteins have primarily focused on HSP70, HSP90, HSP60, small HSPs, and ubiquitin, along with their applications in human biology. The current review highlighted a comprehensive mechanism of heat shock response and explores the function of heat shock proteins in stress management, as well as their potential as therapeutic agents and diagnostic markers for various diseases.

Transcriptional regulation of small HSP-HSF1 and beyond

The members of the small heat shock protein (sHSP) family are molecular chaperones that play major roles in development, stress responses, and diseases, and have been envisioned as targets for therapy, particularly in cancer. The molecular mechanisms that regulate their transcription, in normal, stress, or pathological conditions, are characterized by extreme complexity and subtlety. Although historically linked to the heat shock transcription factors (HSFs), the stress-induced or developmental expression of the diverse members, including HSPB1/Hsp27/Hsp25, αA-crystallin/HSPB4, and αB-crystallin/HSPB5, relies on the combinatory effects of many transcription factors. Coupled with remarkably different cis-element architectures in the sHsp regulatory regions, they confer to each member its developmental expression or stress-inducibility. For example, multiple regulatory pathways coordinate the spatio-temporal expression of mouse αA-, αB-crystallin, and Hsp25 genes during lens development, through the action of master genes, like the large Maf family proteins and Pax6, but also HSF4. The inducibility of Hsp27 and αB-crystallin transcription by various stresses is exerted by HSF-dependent mechanisms, by which concomitant induction of Hsp27 and αB-crystallin expression is observed. In contrast, HSF-independent pathways can lead to αB-crystallin expression, but not to Hsp27 induction. Not surprisingly, deregulation of the expression of sHSP is associated with various pathologies, including cancer, neurodegenerative, or cardiac diseases. However, many questions remain to be addressed, and further elucidation of the developmental mechanisms of sHsp gene transcription might help to unravel the tissue- and stage-specific functions of this fascinating class of proteins, which might prove to be crucial for future therapeutic strategies. This article is part of a Directed Issue entitled: Small HSPs in physiology and pathology.

Regulation and function of small heat shock protein genes during amphibian development

Small heat shock proteins (shsps) are molecular chaperones that are inducible by environmental stress such as elevated temperature or exposure to heavy metals or arsenate. Recent interest in shsps has been propelled by the finding that shsp synthesis or mutations are associated with various human diseases. While much is known about shsps in cultured cells, less is known about their expression and function during early animal development. In amphibian model systems, shsp genes are developmentally regulated under both normal and environmental stress conditions. For example, in Xenopus, the shsp gene family, hsp30, is repressed and not heat-inducible until the late neurula/early tailbud stage whereas other hsps are inducible at the onset of zygotic genome activation at the midblastula stage. Furthermore, these shsp genes are preferentially induced in selected tissues. Recent studies suggest that the developmental regulation of these shsp genes is controlled, in part, at the level of chromatin structure. Some shsps including Xenopus and Rana hsp30 are synthesized constitutively in selected tissues where they may function in the prevention of apoptosis. During environmental stress, amphibian multimeric shsps bind to denatured target protein, inhibittheir aggregation and maintain them in a folding-competent state until reactivated by other cellular chaperones. Phosphorylation of shsps appears to play a major role in the regulation of their function.

Ontogeny of alpha-crystallin subunits in the lens of human and rat embryos

The distribution of alpha A- and alpha B-crystallin in the developing lens of human (Carnegie stages 13 to 23) and rat embryos (embryonic days E11 to 18) was examined immunohistochemically. In a human embryo at stage 13, the lens placode was already immunoreactive to alpha B-crystallin, but not to alpha A-crystallin. At stage 15, the lens vesicle was intensely immunoreactive both to alpha A- and alpha B-crystallin. From stages 16 to 23, the lens epithelial cells and fiber cells were immunoreactive to alpha A- and alpha B-crystallin. In rat embryos, alpha A-crystallin appeared in the lens pit at E12, and alpha B-crystallin appeared in the elongating lens fiber cells at E14. From E15 to E18, the lens epithelial cells and fiber cells were immunoreactive to alpha A-crystallin. The lens fiber cells were also immunoreactive to alpha B-crystallin, but the epithelial cells were not. These findings suggest that alpha B-crystallin appears earlier than alpha A-crystallin in the human lens, but at a later period than alpha A-crystallin in the rat lens. alpha B-Crystallin was not detected in the epithelial cells of the rat lens, but was persistently present in the epithelial cells of the human lens.

Differentiation and angiogenic growth factor message in two mammalian lens epithelial cell lines

Lens epithelial cells in culture can sometimes be induced to form spheroid aggregates termed lentoid bodies, composed of cells exhibiting various characteristics of the more highly differentiated lens fiber cells. However, lentoid bodies are often slow to form, and the ability to produce them declines with serial subculture. It was therefore of interest to establish and/or characterize lens epithelial cell lines capable of forming lentoid bodies. The differentiation state was assessed in lentoid bodies formed by each of two lens epithelial cell lines, the transformed alpha TN4 cell line from mouse and the nontransformed N/N1135A cell line from rabbit. Lentoid and monolayer cultures of each cell line were examined for transcripts of the lens-specific alpha A-crystallin ("alpha A"), gamma D-crystallin ("gamma D"; formerly gamma 1-crystallin) and MP26 genes. alpha TN4 lentoid bodies contained 2.5 times the alpha A RNA found in monolayer cells, but lacked detectable gamma D and MP26 RNA. None of the three markers were detected in either lentoid or monolayer N/N1135A cultures grown under the conditions described. Lentoid body formation alone, therefore, does not indicate the extent of differentiation occurring. At least some of the changes in cell adhesion occurring during lentoid body formation involve laminin-like and fibronectin-like interactions, and are reminiscent of those observed during embryonic lens formation. Finally, vascular endothelial growth factor mRNA was absent from the lens but present in alpha TN4 cells, suggesting a mechanism whereby the lens tumors of the founder mouse became vascularized.

Temporal regulation of six crystallin transcripts during mouse lens development

Using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and RNA blot analysis, we have examined the differential expression patterns of the gamma-crystallins during lens development. Since only four of these genes had been previously characterized, the cDNAs for the remaining two genes, gamma C and gamma F, were isolated and sequenced. The steady-state mRNA profiles were then determined by RNA blot analysis of samples from embryonic stages to 180 days after birth, with gene-specific probes for gamma A, gamma B, gamma C, and gamma D, and a common probe for gamma E and gamma F. Due to the paucity of mismatches between the gamma E and gamma F-crystallin genes, the PCR technique was exploited to determine their relative abundance. The data showed that while all six gamma-crystallin genes were expressed in the embryonic lens, they were differentially regulated during development. At early stages, the levels of gamma B and gamma C mRNAs were found to be relatively low in comparison to those for gamma A, gamma D, gamma E and gamma F. After 30-40 days, however, the levels of gamma A, gamma E, and gamma F mRNAs declined rapidly, and the gamma B, gamma C and gamma D transcripts became the major gamma-crystallin mRNA species. The utility of the PCR technique in studying the relative abundance of steady-state gamma-crystallin mRNAs was also investigated.

Ontogeny of alpha-crystallin polypeptides during the lens development of a mutant mouse

The ontogeny of alpha A, alpha B and alpha Ains polypeptides of the alpha-crystallin was investigated by the indirect immunofluorescence staining method with antibodies directed against these three polypeptides in a mutant mouse strain called dyl (27). In this strain cataractogenesis starts around day 16 of lens development but the early development of the lens and the ontogeny of lens crystallins do not differ from the normal genotype (29). The polypeptides were fractionated from normal adult Swiss albino mice total native alpha-crystallin by SDS gel electrophoresis, extracted, lyophilized and injected into young rabbits for production of the antibody. The isolated polypeptides were controlled by SDS gel re-electrophoresis and the antibodies were tested against rat lens native alpha-crystallin by immunoblotting. alpha A and alpha Ains antibodies cross reacted, while alpha B did not show any cross reaction. Results presented here show that alpha A and alpha B appear simultaneously while alpha Ains was detectable at a later stage of lens development. These results are discussed.