Viral infection causes stress to the endoplasmic reticulum. The response to endoplasmic reticulum stress, known as the unfolded protein response (UPR), is designed to eliminate misfolded proteins and allow the cell to recover by attenuating translation and upregulating the expression of chaperones, degradation factors, and factors that regulate the cell's metabolic and redox environment. Some c...

PURPOSE To investigate the expression of αA- and αB-crystallin and the unfolded protein response in the lens epithelium of patients with high myopia-related cataracts. METHODS AND MATERIALS The central portion of the human anterior lens capsule together with the adhering epithelial cells, approximately 5 mm in diameter, were harvested and processed within two hours after cataract surgery from...

Geranylgeranylacetone (GGA), an antiulcer agent, has the ability to induce 70-kDa heat shock protein (HSP70) in various cell types and to protect cells from apoptogenic insults. However, little is known about effects of GGA on other HSP families of molecules. We found that, at concentrations >/=100 microM, GGA caused selective expression of 78-kDa glucose-regulated protein (GRP78), an HSP70 fam...

The chronic exposure to low doses of ozone, like in environmental pollution, leads to a state of oxidative stress, which has been proposed to contribute to neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). It induces an increase of calcium in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which produces ER stress. On the other hand, different studies show that, in diseases such as Alzheimer's, ...

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response (ERSR) is activated when folding of nascent proteins in the ER lumen is impeded. Myocardial ischemia was recently shown to activate the ERSR; however, the role of this complex signaling system in the heart is not well understood. ER stress activates the transcription factor ATF6, which induces expression of proteins targeted to the ER, where they r...

Mutations in rhodopsin that lead to protein misfolding are a major cause of retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Cells respond to misfolded proteins in their endoplasmic reticulum (ER) by inducing a transcriptional program known as the ‘‘unfolded protein response’’ (UPR), and the UPR is induced in models of rhodopsin RP. The UPR has three branches that sense protein misfolding and initiate this adaptive ...

Evidence suggests that the autoimmune cardiomyopathy produced by a peptide corresponding to the sequence of the second extracellular loop of the beta(1)-adrenergic receptor (beta(1)-EC(II)) is mediated via a biologically active anti-beta(1)-EC(II) antibody, but the mechanism linking the antibody to myocyte apoptosis and cardiac dysfunction has not been well elucidated. Since the beta(1)-EC(II) ...