Expression of stress proteins in cultured human cells as a sensitive indicator of metal toxicity.
Human cell lines cultured under standardized conditions are found to react after a wide variety of aggressive but sub-lethal treatments by expressing stress proteins, mainly of the HSP68, HSP70 and HSP90 families. The stress reaction is a repair mechanism which rapidly takes place after minute damages caused to cell structures. It was therefore proposed to develop a sensitive biomarker to monitor environmental pollution, especially related to metals, based on the evaluation of stress protein production. This was achieved by computer-assisted densitometric analysis of autoradiographies of electrophoretically separated (35)S-labelled proteins. The results indicate that our biological models consisting in HT29 and HepG2 cell-lines react to low concentrations of cadmium or nickel by a clear-cut increase of stress proteins expression. In most cases, this effect is much more significant and much more rapid to observe than changes in growth curves. It may constitute a reliable index of cell susceptibility to environmental aggressions.
Delmas
F
F
G.R.E.P.E.A., Université Paul Sabatier, BP 95, F-81003, Albi, France.
Trocheris
V
V
Miro
C
C
Murat
J C
JC
Villaescusa
I
I