title: Intracellular trehalose improves osmotolerance but not desiccation tolerance in mammalian cells.
abstract: Trehalose has been shown to play a role in osmotolerance or desiccation tolerance in some microorganisms, anhydrobiotic invertebrates and resurrection plants. To test whether trehalose could improve stress responses of higher eukaryotes, a mouse cell line was genetically engineered to express bacterial trehalose synthase genes. We report that the resulting levels of intracellular trehalose ( approximately 80 mM) are able to confer increased resistance to the partial dehydration resulting from hypertonic stress, but do not enable survival of complete desiccation due to air drying.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, CB2 1QT, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: García de Castro
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tunnacliffe
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D002460:Cell Line; D002470:Cell Survival; D003890:Desiccation; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D005964:Glucosyltransferases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D007038:Hypotonic Solutions; D007739:L Cells; D008322:Mammals; D051379:Mice; D009994:Osmolar Concentration; D010744:Phosphoric Monoester Hydrolases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D013937:Thymidine Kinase / Q000235:genetics; D014162:Transfection; D014199:Trehalose / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D007038:Hypotonic Solutions; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D014199:Trehalose; D005964:Glucosyltransferases; C023180:trehalose-6-phosphate synthase; D013937:Thymidine Kinase; C023178:trehalose-phosphatase; D010744:Phosphoric Monoester Hydrolases