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Heat Shock Protein 70 Promotes Cancer Cell Viability by Safeguarding Lysosomal Integrity

Mads Gyrd-Hansen, Jesper Nylandsted and Marja Jäättelä

volume 3 | issue 12

december 2004
Pages: 1484 - 1485

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The major heat-inducible Hsp70 is a potent survival protein that confers cytoprotection against numerous death-inducing stimuli and increases the tumorigenicity of rodent cells. The depletion of Hsp70 by adenovirus-mediated transfer of antisense cDNA induces caspase-independent death of tumorigenic cells while non-tumorigenic cells are unaffected, suggesting that Hsp70 has cancer-specific function(s). We have recently demonstrated that the depletion of Hsp70 in cancer cells results in a cysteine cathepsin-dependent death, which is preceded by lysosomal destabilization and release of lysosomal constituents to the cytosol. In line with this, Hsp70 localizes to the membranes of lysosomes in human colon carcinoma cells and immortalized murine embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) and prevents lysosomal membrane permeabilization and cell death induced by tumor necrosis factor (TNF), etoposide and H2O2. These findings identify Hsp70 as the first survival protein that functions by stabilizing the lysosomal membrane.



We now provide open access to journal articles published online for one year or more. This article may be downloaded at the following link:
 Download PDF

If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.