Intracellular trehalose improves osmotolerance but not desiccation tolerance in mammalian cells.
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.
García de Castro
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Institute of Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, CB2 1QT, Cambridge, UK.
Tunnacliffe
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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*
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