DIFFERENTIAL EXPRESSION OF HEAT-SHOCK-PROTEIN-70 IN WELL HEALING AND CHRONIC HUMAN WOUND TISSUE

Heat shock protein 70 (hsp 70) is an important member of the heat shoc k protein family, which is induced by different forms of stress. We at tempted to find out if hsp 70 is also involved in wound healing, which likewise resembles a stress situation for cells too. Therefore ne col lected tissue samples from well healing and chronic human wound tissue . We used Northern- and Western-blot analysis to study the expression of hsp 70. At the protein level we found a strong correlation between well healing wounds and high expression of hsp 70, whereas chronic wou nds showed no or weak expression. Interestingly hsp 70 mRNA did not sh ow this significant correlation, displaying a variant expression patte rn in the same kind of wound tissue, possibly due to an unknown posttr anscriptional regulating step, which has to be investigated in further studies. To localize hsp 70 mRNA and protein we used insitu hybridiza tion and immunohistochemistry. Both displayed an overexpression in end othelial cells of capillary vessels. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.