Studying stress responses in the post-genomic era: its ecological and evolutionary role

Abstract

Most investigations on the effects of and responses to stress exposures have been performed on a limited number of model organisms in the laboratory. Here much progress has been made in terms of identifying and describing beneficial and detrimental effects of stress, responses to stress and the mechanisms behind stress tolerance. However, to gain further understanding of which genes are involved in stress resistance and how the responses are regulated from an ecological and evolutionary perspective there is a need to combine studies on multiple levels of biological organization from DNA to phenotypes. Furthermore,we emphasize the importance of studying ecologically relevant traits and natural or semi-natural conditions to verify whether the results obtained are representative of the ecological and evolutionary processes in the field. Here,we will review what we currently know about thermal adaptation and the role of different stress responses to thermal challenges in insects, particularly Drosophila.Furthermore,we address some key questions that require future attention.

Characterising multi-level effects of an acute pressure exposure on a shallow-water invertebrate: insights into the kinetics and hierarchy of the stress response

“…In the hierarchy of responses then, a behavioural response, such as tail flicking, is followed by the heat shock response. The expression of HSP70 isoforms has been well documented as being a vital component of the CSR (Feder and Hofmann, 1999;Sørensen and Loeschcke, 2007;Benarroch, 2011). HSP70 expression occurs not only as a response to increasing macromolecular damage during stress exposures, but predominantly post exposure as a recovery mechanism during which macromolecular damage might still be prevalent within the cell (DiDomenico et al, 1982;Tomanek and Somero, 2000).…”

Triggers of the HSP70 stress response: environmental responses and laboratory manipulation in an Antarctic marine invertebrate (Nacella concinna)

“…Whilst the animals in these experiments/ samplings were subjected to temperatures lower than those of the control animals (at 0°C) and therefore presumably protein folding was less efficient, this reduction in expression has to be viewed in the context of whole animal physiology and energetics. Producing HSPs is expensive and there are costs involved at both the cellular and whole animal physiology level (reviewed in Sorensen and Loeschcke 2006). However, during winter, other factors are important and may take overriding precedence.…”

Knocking down expression of Hsp22 and Hsp23 by RNA interference affects recovery from chill coma in Drosophila melanogaster

“…Heat shock proteins (Hsps) are considered prime candidates for thermal tolerance and adaptation in organisms, including the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster (Feder and Hofmann, 1999;Hoffmann et al, 2003;Sørensen et al, 2003;Michaud and Denlinger, 2010). Most of the focus of research on these proteins has been on their role in providing heat resistance, while their potential role in non-freezing cold-stress resistance has received less attention (Norry et al, 2007;Sørensen and Loeschcke, 2007), with the exception of Hsp70 (Michaud and Denlinger, 2004;Sørensen and Loeschcke, 2007;Clark and Worland, 2008). Recently, the effect of low temperatures and diapause on other Hsps has been examined in insects.…”