Identification of the key structural motifs involved in HspB8/HspB6-Bag3 interaction.

The molecular chaperone HspB8 [Hsp (heat-shock protein) B8] is member of the B-group of Hsps. These proteins bind to unfolded or misfolded proteins and protect them from aggregation. HspB8 has been reported to form a stable molecular complex with the chaperone cohort protein Bag3 (Bcl-2-associated athanogene 3). In the present study we identify the binding regions in HspB8 and Bag3 crucial for their interaction. We present evidence that HspB8 binds to Bag3 through the hydrophobic groove formed by its strands beta4 and beta8, a region previously known to be responsible for the formation and stability of higher-order oligomers of many sHsps (small Hsps). Moreover, we demonstrate that two conserved IPV (Ile-Pro-Val) motifs in Bag3 mediate its binding to HspB8 and that deletion of these motifs suppresses HspB8 chaperone activity towards mutant Htt43Q (huntingtin exon 1 fragment with 43 CAG repeats). In addition, we show that Bag3 can bind to the molecular chaperone HspB6. The interaction between HspB6 and Bag3 requires the same regions that are involved in the HspB8-Bag3 association and HspB6-Bag3 promotes clearance of aggregated Htt43Q. Our findings suggest that the co-chaperone Bag3 might prevent the accumulation of denatured proteins by regulating sHsp activity and by targeting their substrate proteins for degradation. Interestingly, a mutation in one of Bag3 IPV motifs has recently been associated with the development of severe dominant childhood muscular dystrophy, suggesting a possible important physiological role for HspB-Bag3 complexes in this disease.

The mechanism whereby heat shock induces apoptosis depends on the innate sensitivity of cells to stress.

The cellular response to heat shock (HS) is a paradigm for many human diseases collectively known as "protein conformation diseases" in which the accumulation of misfolded proteins induces cell death. Here, we analyzed how cells having a different apoptotic threshold die subsequent to a treatment with HS. Cells with a low apoptotic threshold mainly induced apoptosis through activation of conventional stress kinase signaling pathways. By contrast, cells with a high apoptotic threshold also died by apoptosis but likely after the accumulation of heat-aggregated proteins as revealed by the formation of aggresomes in these cells, which were associated with the generation of atypical nuclear deformations. Inhibition of the proteasome or expression of an aggregation prone protein produced similar nuclear alterations. Furthermore, elevated levels of chaperones markedly suppressed both HS-induced nuclear deformations and apoptosis induced upon protein aggregation whereas they had little effect on stress kinase-mediated apoptosis. We conclude that the relative contribution of stress signaling pathways and the accumulation of protein aggregates to cell death by apoptosis is related to the innate sensitivity of cells to deadly insults.

Downregulation of the PI3K/Akt survival pathway in cells with deregulated expression of c-Myc.

Oncogenic transformation leads to an increased sensitivity to apoptosis, a characteristic that is selectively lost during tumor progression. The sensitization process affects the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis through signaling events that are poorly defined. We previously showed that a deregulated expression of c-Myc in cells treated with toxic agents caused an enhanced activation of p38 that acts in a death-promoting pathway. Here, we show that deregulated expression of c-Myc causes a severe reduction in the basal activity of Akt, which was further accelerated by serum deprivation. Furthermore, c-Myc expression repressed the activation of Akt induced by the toxic agents doxorubicin, cisplatin and H(2)O(2), and also by the physiological agonists PDGF and insulin. We determined that the activation of Akt was inhibited as a result of the action of c-Myc upstream of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) activation. c-Myc overexpression impaired the induced association of the p85 subunit of PI3K with phosphotyrosine containing proteins, causing a reduction in the activation of PI3K and recruitment of Akt to the membrane. Inhibiting Akt in addition to enhancing p38 further exacerbate the imbalance between the death and survival signals and results in an enhanced sensitivity to apoptosis.