Cloning, purification and characterization of a 90kDa heat shock protein from Citrus sinensis (sweet orange).

Protein misfolding is stimulated by stress, such as heat, and heat shock proteins (Hsps) are the first line of defense against these undesirable situations. Plants, which are naturally sessile, are perhaps more exposed to stress factors than some other organisms, and consequently, the role of Hsps is crucial to maintain homeostasis. Hsp90, because of its key role in infection and other stresses, is targeted in therapies that improve plant production by increasing resistance to both biotic and abiotic stress. In addition, Hsp90 is a primary factor in the maintenance of homeostasis in plants. Therefore, we cloned and purified Hsp90 from Citrus sinensis (sweet orange). Recombinant C. sinensis Hsp90 (rCsHsp90) was produced and measured by circular dichroism (CD), intrinsic fluorescence spectroscopy and dynamic light scattering. rCsHsp90 formed a dimer in solution with a Stokes radius of approximately 62Å. In addition, it was resistant to thermal unfolding, was able to protect citrate synthase from aggregation, and Western blot analysis demonstrated that CsHsp90 was constitutively expressed in C. sinensis cells. Our analysis indicated that CsHsp90 is conformationally similar to that of yeast Hsp90, for which structural information is available. Therefore, we showed that C. sinensis expresses an Hsp90 chaperone that has a conformation and function similar to other Hsp90s.

Transcriptome profiling of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis yeast-phase cells recovered from infected mice brings new insights into fungal response upon host interaction.

Paracoccidioides brasiliensis is a fungal human pathogen with a wide distribution in Latin America. It causes paracoccidioidomycosis, the most widespread systemic mycosis in Latin America. Although gene expression in P. brasiliensis had been studied, little is known about the genome sequences expressed by this species during the infection process. To better understand the infection process, 4934 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) derived from a non-normalized cDNA library from P. brasiliensis (isolate Pb01) yeast-phase cells recovered from the livers of infected mice were annotated and clustered to a UniGene (clusters containing sequences that represent a unique gene) set with 1602 members. A large-scale comparative analysis was performed between the UniGene sequences of P. brasiliensis yeast-phase cells recovered from infected mice and a database constructed with sequences of the yeast-phase and mycelium transcriptome (isolate Pb01) (https://dna.biomol.unb.br/Pb/), as well as with all public ESTs available at GenBank, including sequences of the P. brasiliensis yeast-phase transcriptome (isolate Pb18) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). The focus was on the overexpressed and novel genes. From the total, 3184 ESTs (64.53%) were also present in the previously described transcriptome of yeast-form and mycelium cells obtained from in vitro cultures (https://dna.biomol.unb.br/Pb/) and of those, 1172 ESTs (23.75% of the described sequences) represented transcripts overexpressed during the infection process. Comparative analysis identified 1750 ESTs (35.47% of the total), comprising 649 UniGene sequences representing novel transcripts of P. brasiliensis, not previously described for this isolate or for other isolates in public databases. KEGG pathway mapping showed that the novel and overexpressed transcripts represented standard metabolic pathways, including glycolysis, amino acid biosynthesis, lipid and sterol metabolism. The unique and divergent representation of transcripts in the cDNA library of yeast cells recovered from infected mice suggests differential gene expression in response to the host milieu.