研究领域

How do organisms adapt to stressful environments? Most proteins function efficiently only within a narrow range of optimal conditions. Yet, cells and organisms not only survive a wide variety of environmental and physiological fluctuations, but have evolved to colonize a vast diversity of environmental niches. To combat the consequence of chronic protein misfolding due to environmental fluctuations all cells possess robust quality-control mechanisms that sense and respond to protein damage. One such response is the heat shock response, a transcriptional response that increases the expression of specific cytoprotective proteins called heat shock proteins (HSPs) under conditions that can cause protein damage (Figure 1). HSPs are molecular chaperones that maintain protein conformation, and help refold or degrade damaged proteins, thereby restoring cellular function. The heat shock response is controlled cell non-autonomously in the metazoan C. elegans This ability to detect and repair of protein damage is a fundamental process so inherent to the functionality of each cell that it would seem that it needs to remain under the control of individual cells. However, while the upregulation of HSPs confers a remarkable protection from a variety of proteotoxic conditions and protein misfolding, it can interfere with growth and cell cycle progression and increase susceptibility to transformation. Thus, one may argue that metazoans cannot afford to allow each cell to mount its own, autonomous stress response, but may instead subject this fundamental response to centralized control. Indeed, in the metazoan C. elegans, although the heat shock machinery is present in every cell, the ability of the cell to activate a heat shock response is centrally controlled by the animals’ nervous system.

Genetics, Neurobiology

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