The soybean pod borer (Leguminivora glycinivorella Matsumura) successfully survives the winter because of its high expression of 70-kDa heat shock proteins (HSP70s) during its overwintering diapause. The amount of HSP70s is different under different environmental stresses. In this study, inducible heat shock protein 70 and its constitutive heat shock cognate 70 were cloned by RT-PCR and RACE. T...

The survival and molting incidence in Triatoma infestans, a vector of Chagas disease, were investigated following sequential shocks at 0 degrees C in fifth instar nymphs under moderate fasting and full nutritional conditions. The shocks were separated by intervals of 8 h and 24 h at 30 degrees C. The results indicated that in terms of insect survival, T. infestans is tolerant to a single cold s...

Inbreeding depression is a widespread phenomenon of central importance to agriculture, medicine, conservation biology and evolutionary biology. Although the population genetic principles of inbreeding depression are well understood, we know little about its functional genomic causes. To provide insight into the molecular interplay between intrinsic stress responses, inbreeding depression and te...

CspA, the major cold-shock protein of Escherichia coli, is dramatically induced during the cold-shock response. The amino acid sequence of CspA shows 43% identity to the "cold-shock domain" of the eukaryotic Y-box protein family, which interacts with RNA and DNA to regulate their functions. Here, we demonstrate that CspA binds to RNA as a chaperone. First, CspA cooperatively binds to heat-denat...

Bacteria have evolved a number of mechanisms for coping with stress and adapting to changing environmental conditions. Many bacteria produce small cold shock proteins (Csp) as a response to rapid temperature downshift (cold shock). During cold shock, the cell membrane fluidity and enzyme activity decrease, and the efficiency of transcription and translation is reduced due to stabilization of nu...

Production of heat-shock proteins is induced when a living cell is exposed to a rise in temperature. The heat-shock response of protein DnaK synthesis in E.coli for temperature shifts T-->T+DeltaT and T-->T-DeltaT is measured as a function of the initial temperature T. We observe a reversed heat shock at low T. The magnitude of the shock increases when one increases the distance to the temperat...

Samples of ram, bull and boar semen were subjected to cold shock and then stained using an indirect immunocytochemical method for detecting acrosin. It was found that the shock treatment abolished staining of the acrosomal region in all but a very few cells. This finding was interpreted as a great loss of proacrosin or acrosin from damaged acrosomes. Using a fluorescent label in the system, spe...

It is well known that cold environments are predominant over the Earth and there are a great number of reports analyzing bacterial adaptations to cold. Most of these works are focused on characteristics traditionally involved in cold adaptation, such as the structural adjustment of enzymes, maintenance of membrane fluidity, expression of cold shock proteins and presence of compatible solutes. R...

The release of gentamicin adenine mononucleotide transferase during single, cold, osmotic-shock treatment of Escherichia coli K-12 W677/HJR66 is not always maximal. The quantity of gentamicin adenine mononucleotide transferase in osmotic extracts could be significantly increased when a double-shock procedure was performed.

Two principal forms of temperature-control strategies have evolved, i.e., poikilothermic and homeothermic life. Even in homeothermic animals, the temperature field of the body is not homogeneous. These observed temperature differences can affect cellular function directly or via the expression of heat shock or cold shock proteins.