Macario AJ
Wadsworth Center, Division of Molecular Medicine, New York State Department of Health; Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Public Health, The University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, New York 12201-0509, U.S.A.
Stress. 1997 May;1(3):123-134. doi: 10.3109/10253899709001102.
Molecular sequence data, made available in the last 15 years or so, have led to the classification of living cells into three phylogenetic domains: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucarya. All the organisms that have been tested belonging to either domain were capable of mounting a stress response with essentially the same characteristics, regardless of the stressor. The protagonists in the cell's stress response are the stress genes and their protein products. Some of the latter are molecular chaperones. Under physiological conditions, these chaperones aid other cellular proteins to fold properly and achieve a native -functional- configuration, and to translocate from the place of synthesis to the cell's locale in which they will operate. In a stressed cell, the stress proteins that are chaperones protect other molecules from denaturation and help those partially damaged to regain a functional configuration. Thus, cell death is avoided and recovery is enhanced. The study of stress genes and proteins has progressed considerably in organisms belonging to the domains Bacteria and Eucarya. Less is known about the archaeal stress genes. Here, research with an organism from the Archaea is discussed, focusing on the stress genes of the hsp70 (dnaK) locus. Future perspectives for basic and applied research within the health sciences and biotechnology industries are presented.
在过去大约15年里可获取的分子序列数据，已促使将活细胞分类为三个系统发育域：细菌域、古菌域和真核生物域。所有已测试的属于任一域的生物体，无论应激源是什么，都能够产生具有基本相同特征的应激反应。细胞应激反应中的主角是应激基因及其蛋白质产物。后者中的一些是分子伴侣。在生理条件下，这些伴侣蛋白帮助其他细胞蛋白质正确折叠并形成天然的功能构型，并从合成位点转运到它们将发挥作用的细胞区域。在应激细胞中，作为伴侣蛋白的应激蛋白保护其他分子不发生变性，并帮助那些部分受损的分子恢复功能构型。因此，避免了细胞死亡并增强了恢复能力。在属于细菌域和真核生物域的生物体中，应激基因和蛋白质的研究已经取得了相当大的进展。关于古菌应激基因的了解较少。在此，讨论了对一种来自古菌域的生物体的研究，重点是hsp70（dnaK）位点的应激基因。还介绍了健康科学和生物技术行业基础研究和应用研究的未来前景。
