Induction of thermotolerance in T cells protects nuclear DNA topoisomerase I from heat stress

Topoisomerase 1 Activity Is Reduced in Response to Thermal Stress in Fruit Flies and in Human HeLa Cells

In the modern world with climate changes and increasing pollution, different types of stress are becoming an increasing challenge. Hence, the identification of reliable biomarkers of stress and accessible sensors to measure such biomarkers are attracting increasing attention. In the current study, we demonstrate that the activity, but not the expression, of the ubiquitous enzyme topoisomerase 1 (TOP1), as measured in crude cell extracts by the REEAD sensor system, is markedly reduced in response to thermal stress in both fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) and cultivated human cells. This effect was observed in response to both mild-to-moderate long-term heat stress and more severe short-term heat stress in D. melanogaster. In cultivated HeLa cells a reduced TOP1 activity was observed in response to both cold and heat stress. The reduced TOP1 activity appeared dependent on one or more cellular pathways since the activity of purified TOP1 was unaffected by the utilized stress temperatures. We demonstrate successful quantitative measurement of TOP1 activity using an easily accessible chemiluminescence readout for REEAD pointing towards a sensor system suitable for point-of-care assessment of stress responses based on TOP1 as a biomarker.

Cellular mechanisms of neuronal damage from hyperthermia

Hyperthermia can cause brain damage and also exacerbate the brain damage produced by stroke and amphetamines. The developing brain is especially sensitive to hyperthermia. The severity of, and mechanisms underlying, hyperthermia-induced neuronal death depend on both temperature and duration of exposure. Severe hyperthermia can produce necrotic neuronal death. For a window of less severe heat stresses, cultured neurons exhibit a delayed death with apoptotic characteristics including cytochrome c release and caspase activation. Little is known about mechanisms of hyperthermia-induced damage upstream of these late apoptotic effects. This chapter considers several possible upstream mechanisms, drawing on both in vivo and in vitro studies of the nervous system and other tissues. Hyperthermia-induced damage in some non-neuronal cells includes endoplasmic reticular stress due to denaturing of nascent polypeptide chains, as well as nuclear and cytoskeletal damage. Evidence is presented that hyperthermia produces mitochondrial damage, including depolarization, in cultured mammalian neurons.

Inactivation of eukaryotic initiation factor 2B in vitro by heat shock

Protein synthesis in rat H35 Reuber hepatoma cells is rapidly inhibited on heat shock. At mild heat-shock temperatures the main cause for inhibition is the inactivation of the guanine nucleotide exchange factor eukaryotic initiation factor 2B (eIF2B); under more severe heat-shock conditions the activity of several initiation factors is compromised. eIF2B is required for GDP/GTP exchange on eIF2, which delivers methionyl-tRNA to the 40 S ribosomal subunit. We have tried to elucidate the mechanism underlying the inactivation of eIF2B by assays in vitro. Incubation of cell extracts at 41 degreesC or higher led to the inactivation of eIF2B. In agreement with observations in cells exposed to mild heat shocks, the thermal inactivation of eIF2B could be ascribed to neither eIF2alpha phosphorylation nor the induction of another inhibitor. With the use of glycerol gradients we show that eIF2B forms aggregates in heat-treated extracts. Furthermore eIF2B activity is protected against heat shock in thermotolerant cells. Taken together, these results suggest a role for chaperones in the control of eIF2B activity.

Hsp70 and Hsp40 chaperone activities in the cytoplasm and the nucleus of mammalian cells

The existence and function of a Hsp40-Hsp70 chaperone machinery in mammalian cells in vivo was investigated. The rate of heat inactivation of firefly luciferase transiently expressed in hamster O23 fibroblasts was analyzed in cells co-transfected with the gene encoding the human Hsp40 (Ohtsuka, K. (1993) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 197, 235-240), the human inducible Hsp70 (Hunt, C., and Morimoto, R. I. (1985) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 82, 6455-6459), or a combination of both. Whereas the expression of human Hsp70 alone in hamster cells was sufficient for the protection of firefly luciferase during heat shock, expression of the human Hsp40 alone was not. Rather, this led to a small but significant increase in the heat sensitivity of luciferase. The expression of the human Hsp40 only led to heat protection when the human Hsp70 was expressed as well. Under such conditions the rate of luciferase reactivation from the heat-inactivated state was increased, but the rate of inactivation during heat shock was not affected. Using constructs that direct firefly luciferase either to the cytoplasm or to the nucleus (Michels, A. A., Nguyen, V.-T., Konings, A. W. T., Kampinga, H. H., and Bensaude, O. (1995) Eur. J. Biochem. 234, 382-389), it was demonstrated that these chaperone functions are found in both compartments. Our data provide the first evidence on how the Hsp40/Hsp70 chaperone complex acts as heat protector in mammalian cells in vivo.

Heat-shock induced protein modifications and modulation of enzyme activities

Upon heat stress, the cell physiology is profoundly altered. The extent of the alterations depends on the severity of the stress and may lead to cell death. The heat shock response is an array of metabolic changes characterized by the impairment of major cellular functions and by an adaptative reprogramming of the cell metabolism. The enhanced synthesis of the HSPs is a spectacular manifestation of this reprogramming. Numerous post translational modifications of proteins occur in response to heat stress and can be related to altered cellular functions. Some proteins are heat-denatured and temporarily inactivated. Heat-denaturation is reversible, chaperones may contribute to the repair. The extent of heat-denaturation depends on the cell metabolism: (a) it is attenuated in thermotolerant cells or in cells overexpressing the appropriate chaperones (b) it is enhanced in energy-deprived cells. Covalent modifications may also rapidly alter protein function. Changes in protein glycosylation, methylation, acetylation, farnesylation, ubiquitination have been found to occur during stress. But protein phosphorylation is the most studied modification. Several protein kinase cascades are activated, among which the various mitogen activated protein kinase (MAP kinase) cascades which are also triggered by a wide range of stimuli. As a possible consequence, stress modifies the phosphorylation status and the activity of components from the transcriptional and translational apparatuses. The same kinases also target key enzymes of the cellular metabolism. Protein denaturation results in constitutive hsp titration, this titration is a signal to trigger the heat-shock gene transcription and to activate some of the protein kinase cascades.

Heat stress induces hsc70/nuclear topoisomerase I complex formation in vivo: evidence for hsc70-mediated, ATP-independent reactivation in vitro

We previously demonstrated that in murine T cells thermotolerance correlated with heat shock protein 70 (hsp70) synthesis and protection of nuclear type I topoisomerase (topo I). Topo I activity returned to normal levels following heat stress even in cells not rendered thermotolerant by a prior heat shock. Recovery of topo I activity was not dependent on de novo protein synthesis, suggesting that the cell possesses a pathway(s) for refolding this nuclear protein. In this report we demonstrate that topo I and hsc70, the constitutively produced member of the hsp70 family, associated in vivo during heat stress. That this association may play a physiologically important role in protecting topo I activity from heat stress was suggested by the observation that hsc70 protected topo I from heat inactivation in vitro. hsc70 but not actin also reactivated previously heat-denatured topo I in a dose-dependent fashion. However, refolding of heat-denatured topo I by purified hsc70 was inefficient relative to a hsc70-containing cell lysate. Protection from heat inactivation as well as reactivation by hsc70 did not require exogenous ATP. Similarly, reactivation by the cell lysate was not inhibited by ADP or a nonhydrolyzable analogue of ATP. Thus, our studies suggest that nuclear topo I complexes with hsc70 during heat stress, which may explain, at least in part, why hsp70 proteins accumulate in the nucleus, particularly the nucleolus. This interaction may limit heat-induced protein damage and/or accelerate restoration of protein function in an ATP-independent reaction.

Increased thermal aggregation of proteins in ATP-depleted mammalian cells

In an attempt to understand the influence of the intracellular environment on protein stability, the thermal denaturation of various reporter proteins was examined within cultured mammalian cells. Loss of solubility and of enzymatic activities were taken as indicators of thermal denaturation. Photinus pyralis luciferase, Escherichia coli beta-galactosidase, the 70-kDa constitutive heat-shock proteins and the 68-kDa dsRNA-dependent protein kinase are found mostly in the supernatant fractions of centrifuged lysates from control unshocked mammalian cells. However, when cells are lysed after heat shock, a proportion of the reporter molecules is found to be aggregated to the nuclear pellets. This insolubilization does not affect all cellular proteins; many of them remain unaffected by heat shock. The heat-induced insolubilization of all four reporter proteins is markedly enhanced when the intracellular ATP concentration is drastically decreased after inhibition of both oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis. Although ATP molecules bind to luciferase and protect it from thermal inactivation in vitro, the consequences of strong ATP depletion on luciferase thermal stability within the cells are found to be much greater than expected from in vitro data. The 70-kDa constitutive heat-shock proteins and the 68-kDa protein kinase are ATP-binding proteins but ATP depletion also considerably increases the aggregation of beta-galactosidase to the nuclear pellets, although this enzyme is not known to be an ATP-binding molecule. Insolubilization of all four reporter proteins occurs in ATP-depleted cells even at normal growing temperatures (37 degrees C). Protein denaturation may be enhanced either by the aggregation and disappearance of the intracellular 'free' chaperones or by the trapping of unfolded protein molecules on chaperones; the chaperone/unfolded protein complexes could not dissociate in the absence of ATP. Enhanced protein denaturation due to ATP depletion is proposed to account for the greater heat sensitivity of ATP-depleted cells and for the ability of mitochondrial uncouplers to trigger a heat-shock response in some cells.