CGC Bibliography Paper 5227

Extended longevity of Caenorhabditis elegans by knocking in extra copies of hsp70F, a homolog of mot-2 (mortalin)/mthsp70/Grp75.

Yokoyama K, Fukumoto K, Murakami T, Harada S, Hosono R, Wadhwa R, Mitsui Y, Ohkuma S

Medline:

Citation:

FEBS Letters 516: 53-57 2002

Type:

ARTICLE

Genes:

mot-2

Abstract:

The Caenorhabditis elegans homolog of mortalin/mthsp70/Grp75; (called mot-2 hereafter) was isolated by screening of a nematode cDNA library with mouse mot-2 cDNA. The isolated clone matched to hsp70F of C elegans. Analysis with two of the antibodies raised against hsp70F revealed that unlike mammalian mot-2, it is heat inducible. Transient induction of hsp70F by heat shock led to a slight (< 13%) extension in the C elegans life span. The transgenic worms that constitutively over-expressed hsp70F predominantly in muscle showed life span extension (similar to 43% for mean and similar to 45% for maximum life span) as compared to the wild-type and green fluorescent protein-transgenic worms. Life span extension of human cells was obtained by over-expression of mot-2 [Kaul et al. (2000) FEBS Lett. 474, 159-164]. Our results show, for the first time, that this member of the hsp70 family governs the longevity of worms and thus there are common pathways that determine mammalian and worm