Enhanced constitutive expression of the 27-kDa heat shock proteins in heat-resistant variants from Chinese hamster cells.

Four heat-resistant variants were isolated after treatment of Chinese hamster lung cells with the mutagen ethyl methane sulfonate, followed by a single-step selection procedure consisting in a severe hyperthermic treatment of 4 h at 44 degrees C. The isolated clones had a stable resistant phenotype for at least 150 generations during which they showed a 5,000-fold increased survival to a 4-h treatment at 44 degrees C when compared to wild-type cells. Comparative two-dimensional electrophoretic analyses of proteins revealed that, like induced thermotolerant wild-type cells (i.e., cells induced to a transient physiological state of thermotolerance by a sublethal heat conditioning treatment administered 18 h before), the heat-resistant variants had, at normal temperature, an increased content of a heat-shock protein with Mr of 27,000 (HSP27). In three of the four heat-resistant variants, the increased content of HSP27 was correlated with a two-fold increase in the constitutive level of the mRNA encoding HSP27. Chinese hamster HSP27 is composed of three species that differ in their relative isoelectric point, among which the two most acidic forms are phosphoproteins. In both the heat-resistant variant and wild-type cells, heat shock induces a rapid enhancement of the phosphorylation of HSP27: maximal phosphorylation occurs within 10 min upon changing the incubation temperature from 35 degrees to 44 degrees C. A concomitant shift in silver-staining intensity is rapidly detectable between the three isoforms, which seems to indicate that the two phosphorylated species represent post-translational modifications of the more basic species. It is concluded that most likely the enhanced expression of HSP27 is linked to the resistant phenotype of the variants. The study provides supporting evidence that both the content and phosphorylation status of HSP27 are determining factors in the ability of cells to survive hyperthermic treatments.