Abstract
The intracellular level of free heat shock proteins, in particular the 70-kDa stress protein family, has been suggested to be the basis of an autoregulatory mechanism by which the cell measures the level of thermal stress and regulates the synthesis of heat shock proteins. It has been proposed that the DNA-binding and oligomeric state of the heat shock transcription factor (HSF) is a principal step in the induction pathway that is responsive to the level of 70-kDa stress protein. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the association between HSF and 70-kDa stress protein by means of a coimmunoprecipitation assay. We found that 70-kDa stress proteins associate to similar extents with both latent and active forms of HSF, although unlike other 70-kDa stress protein substrates, the association with HSF was not significantly disrupted in the presence of ATP. Gel mobility shift assays indicated that active HSF trimers purified from a bacterial expression system could not be substantially deactivated in vitro with purified 70-kDa stress protein and ATP. In addition, elevated concentrations of hsp70 alone could not significantly inhibit induction of the DNA-binding activity of endogenous HSF in cultured rat cells, and the induction was also not inhibited in cultured rat cells or Drosophila cells containing elevated levels of all members of the heat shock protein family. However, the deactivation of HSF to the non-DNA-binding state after prolonged heat stress or during recovery could be accelerated by increased levels of heat shock proteins. Hence, the level of heat shock proteins may affect the rate of disassembly of HSF trimers, but another mechanism, as yet undefined, appears to control the onset of the oligomeric transitions.