HSP70 heat shock proteins and environmental stress in Antarctic marine organisms:A mini-review

摘要

The ability to understand and predict the effects of environmental stress on biodiversity is becomingincreasingly important in our changing environment. Antarctic marine species are some of the moststenothermal on the planet and many inhabit the waters off the Antarctic Peninsula which is one of the areaswhere there is rapid regional climate change. Therefore these animals are highly vulnerable to changingenvironmental temperatures and clearly we need to understand the complexities of their response, not justat the individual species level, but also the implications for the ecosystem as a whole. Heat shock proteinshave a long history of use in studies of organism stress responses and have frequently been proposed aspotential universal molecular biomarkers, especially for non-model species. In this mini-review, the heatshock response and heat shock proteins (specifically the HSP70 family) are examined in Antarctic marinespecies alongside their physiological capabilities and limits to answer a series of questions: do these animalshave a heat shock response which includes the expression of HSP70 genes? What is the relationship betweentheir heat shock response and physiological capabilities? Can HSP70 genes be used as molecular biomarkersfor these species?