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Long-Term Effect of Heat Shock Protein 60 from Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans on Epithelial Cell Viability and Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases

Department of Oral Biological and Medical Sciences,¹ Department of Medicine and Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation, University of British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada,² Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Helsinki University Central Hospital, University of Helsinki, Finland³

Received 14 May 2003/ Returned for modification 14 July 2003/ Accepted 22 September 2003

Our previous studies showed that bacterial heat shock protein 60 (hsp60) induces cultured epithelial cell proliferation within 24 h. Here we investigated the long-term effects of heat shock protein 60 isolated from Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans on skin keratinocyte (HaCaT cell line) viability and the cell signaling involved. Prolonged incubation in the presence of hsp60 increased the rate of epithelial cell death. The number of viable cells in hsp60-treated culture was 37% higher than the number in the control at 24 h but 27% lower at 144 h. A kinetics study of the effect of hsp60 on the phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) involving Western blotting with phospho-specific antibodies showed that in addition to a transient early increase in p38 levels, a second peak appeared in keratinocytes 24 h after the addition of hsp60. In contrast, prolonged incubation with hsp60 caused a decrease in the level of phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) compared with that in the controls, possibly as a result of protein phosphatase activity. We found that hsp60 increased the levels of several phosphatases, including MAP-2, which strongly dephosphorylates ERK1/2. Moreover, hsp60 increased the level of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-) in culture medium in a dose-dependent manner. TNF- added to culture showed a cytotoxic effect on epithelial cells, particularly with longer incubation periods. TNF- also induced the phosphorylation of p38. Finally, our results show that bacterial hsp60 inhibited stress-induced synthesis of cellular hsp60. Therefore, several cell behavior changes caused by long-term exposure to bacterial hsp60 may lead to impaired epithelial cell viability.

Editor: D. L. Burns

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