Get Dry or Die Trying: Molecular and Chemical Chaperones are Essential for Desiccation Tolerance

Abstract

Most cell’s chemical processes involve water, making the loss of it a severe stressor to homeostasis. Anhydrobiotic organisms can tolerate desiccation for extended periods. Understanding the molecular basis for their desiccation tolerance may provide novel insights into stress biology and critical tools for engineering drought-tolerant crops. Using the anhydrobiote, Saccharomyces cerevisae, we show that trehalose and the chaperones Hsp12 and Hsp104, synergize to mitigate the inviability caused by the lethal stresses of desiccation. Interestingly, the protein chaperone Hsp104 compensates for loss of trehalose during short-term, but not long-term, desiccation. We will extend our long-term studies by coupling limited humidity while drying. We propose that desiccated cells initially accumulate both protein and chemical chaperones, like Hsp104 and trehalose, respectively. As desiccation extends, the activities of the protein chaperones are lost because of their complexity and requirement for energy, leaving trehalose as the major protector against the aggregation of cytoplasmic and membrane proteins.

Details

Session 1

9:30am – 11:00am

Grand Salon