Le cancer de la prostate (CaP) représente la deuxième cause de mortalité par cancer chez l'homme. La suppression androgénique (castration-thérapie) demeure la seule thérapie efficace du CaP avancé du fait de son caractère castration-sensible. Cependant, elle n'empêche pas la progression castration-résistante (CR) de la maladie dans les 1 à 3 ans après le début du traitement hormonal. Récemment, l'implication d'Hsp27 (Heat shock protein 27) dans l'échappement thérapeutique des CaPs a été montrée et un oligonucléotide antisens inhibiteur d'Hsp27, OGX-427, est en cours d'évaluation clinique II/III pour le traitement des CaPs CR. Afin de comprendre le rôle d'Hsp27 dans le mécanisme de résistance à la castration, nous avons réalisé le criblage de l'ensemble des protéines partenaires d'Hsp27 par double hybride. Mes travaux de thèse ont permis d'identifier une nouvelle protéine cliente d'Hsp27, TCTP (translationally controlled tumor protein) dont l'expression est indétectable dans les cellules normales. J'ai également montré que la progression CR des CaPs corrélait avec une surexpression de TCTP, une perte de P53 et que l'inhibition de TCTP par un oligonucléotide antisens restaurait l'expression de P53. Cette étude suggère, pour la première fois, un lien direct entre P53 et la sensibilité à la castration des CaPs. De plus, l'étude de l'interactome d'Hsp27 a mis en évidence son implication dans de nouvelles fonctions telles que la réparation de l'ADN ou l'épissage alternatif des ARNm. L'ensemble de ces travaux ont permis de mieux comprendre les mécanismes d'action d'Hsp27 dans la progression CR des CaPs et de développer de nouvelles approches thérapeutiques. / Prostate cancer (PC) is the second most common cause of cancer-related mortality in men in the Western world. Androgen ablation (castration-therapy) is usually the initial therapy in patients with advanced or metastatic disease. Unfortunately, the disease gradually progresses to a metastatic castration-resistant (CR) state, which remains incurable. Recently, the involvement of Hsp27 (Heat Shock Protein 27) in CR progression has been identified and an oligonucleotide antisense (OGX-427), inhibitor of Hsp27 is currently in phase II/III clinical trials to treat CRPC. In order to understand Hsp27 mechanisms of action in CR progression, we started to screen for Hsp27 partner proteins by using two-hybrid system. My PhD work has reported that Translationally Controlled Tumor Protein (TCTP) was a new Hsp27 protein partner that mediated Hsp27 cytoprotection in CRPC and that TCTP expression was absent in normal prostate tissues. We have further found that CR progression correlated with TCTP overexpression, the loss of P53 and that TCTP silencing using an antisense was able to restore P53 expression and function. This study suggests for the first time that castration-sensitivity is directly linked to P53 expression. In addition, we revealed exciting new aspects of the Hsp27 involvement in essential metabolic and cellular processes such as DNA repair and mRNA splicing. In summary, my PhD results have provided an enriched understanding of Hsp27 mechanisms of cytoprotection contributing to CRPC progression and opened a new promising field of research for multi-target therapeutic approaches.

Understanding the cellular response thermal stress is important for improving thermoablative treatments of cancer. Cells generally respond to thermal stress by expressing heat shock proteins, or undergoing cell death by apoptosis or necrosis. Most of our detailed knowledge regarding these cellular phenomena has been gathered in vitro in two dimensional (2D) environments. Yet, little is known about how prostate cancer cells respond to thermal stress in a more physiologically relevant three dimensional (3D) environment. Several approaches were used to investigate this question, all of which focused on controlled heating of cells in both two dimensional (2D) and 3D culture. Tools and assays were developed to investigate cellular response to thermal stress in 2D and 3D environments. A computer-controlled heating apparatus was constructed to heat cell cultures to precise temperatures and durations. Three dimensional growth environments were produced using Matrigel, a commercially available extracellular matrix (ecm) mixture. Transcriptional expression of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) was measured using a green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter gene under the control of an HSP promoter. Apoptosis, necrosis and HSP70 transcription was measured using flow cytometry analysis. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and microscopy revealed that transmembrane targets may be involved in the mechanism of the effect which 3D culture has on the cellular response to heat shock. The results herein demonstrate that the 3D growth environment, may be protective to the cell in that the percentage of cells that undergo apoptosis or necrosis when exposed to heat shock are reduced. Furthermore, HSP70 expression is enhanced in 3D culture at a specific thermal dose and integrins and heat shock proteins may be part of the mechanism by which the ecm exerts its protective effect against thermal stress. / text

Rotavirus is one of the leading etiological agents of gastroenteritis in young of many species including humans worldwide and is responsible for about 600,000 infant deaths per annum. Rotavirus belongs to the Reoviridae family, and its genome is composed of 11 double-stranded RNA segments that encode six structural proteins and six nonstructural proteins. Rotavirus replication is fully cytoplasmic and occurs within highly specialized regions called viroplasms. NSP2 and NSP5 have been shown to be essential for viroplasm formation and, when co-expressed in uninfected cells, to form viroplasm¬like structures. A recent study suggest a key role for NSP5 in architectural assembly of viroplasms and in recruitment of viroplasmic proteins, containing four structural (VP1, VP2, VP3 and VP6) and two nonstructural (NSP2 and NSP5) proteins. NSP5, the translation product of gene segment 11 has a predicted molecular eight of 21 kDa. NSP5 has been reported to exist in multiple isoforms ranging in size from 28-and 32-35 kDa from a 26-kDa precursor has been attributed to O-glycosylation and hyperphosphorylation. To study different properties of the protein, recombinant NSP5 containing an N-terminal hisidine tag was expressed in bacteria and purified by affinity chromatography. A significant observation was the similarity in phosphorylation property of the bacterially expressed and that expressed in mammalian cells. While the untagged recombinant protein failed to undergo phosphorylation in vitro, addition of His tag or deletions at the N-terminus promoted phosphorylation of the protein in vitro, which is very similar to the reported properties exhibited by the corresponding proteins expressed in mammalian cells. Phosphorylation of NSP5 in vitro is independent of the cell type from which the extract is derived suggesting that the kinases that phosphorylate NSP5 are distributed in all cell types. Among the C-terminal deletion mutants studied, NH-∆C5 and NH-∆C10 were phosphorylated better than full-length NSP5, but NH-∆C25 and NH¬∆C35 showed substantial reduction in the level of phosphorylation compared to full-length NSP5. These results indicate that the C-terminal 30 residues spanning the predicted α-helical domain of NSP5 are critical for its phosphorylation in vitro which is in correspondence with previous findings that C-terminal 21 amino acids of NSP5 direct its insolubility, hyperphosphorylation, and VLS formation. The results revealed that though the tagged full-length and some of the mutants could be phosphorylated in vitro, they are not suitable substrates for hyperphosphorylation unlike the similar proteins expressed in mammalian cells or infected cells. Analysis by western blot and mass spectrometry revealed that the bacterially expressed NH-NSP5 is indeed phosphorylated. It appears that prior phosphorylation in bacteria renders the protein conformationally not amendable for hyperphosphorylation by cellular kinases in vitro. Mutation of the highly conserved proline marginally enhanced its phosphorylation in vitro but the stability of protein is affected. Notably, mutation of S67A, identified as a critical residue for the putative caesin kinase-I and-II pathways of NSP5 phosphorylation, affected neither the phosphorylation nor the ATPase activity of NSP5. These results suggest that bacterially expressed NSP5 by itself has undectable auto-kinase activity and it is hypophosphorylated. Purified recombinant NSP5 has been reported to possess an Mg¬ 2+-dependent ATP-specific triphosphatase activity. The results indicated that deletion of either C-terminal 48 amino acids or N-terminal 33 residues severely affected the ATPase activity of recombinant NSP5, underlying the importance of both N-and C-terminal domains for NSP5 ATP hydrolysis function. NSP5 expressed in rotavirus infected cells exists as inter-molecular disulfide-linked dimeric forms and it appears that the 46 kDa isoforms, that are phosphorylated, corresponds to dimer as revealed by western blotting. Analytical gel filtration analysis of NH-NSP5, NH-ΔN43 and NH-ΔN33-ΔC25 showed most of the proteins in void volume, but an additional peak corresponding to the mass of dimeric species further supports that NSP5 is basically a dimer that undergoes oligomerization. Analysis by sucrose-gradient fractionation revealed that NH-NSP5 and NH-ΔN43 proteins were mainly distributed in the lower fraction of the gradient suggesting the existence of high molecular weight complexes or higher oligomers. The multimeric nature of NSP5 and its mutants was further confirmed by dynamic light scattering which suggests that high molecular weight complexes are of homogenous species. The correlation curves showed a low polydispersity distribution and a globular nature of recombinant NH-NSP5 proteins. The present results clearly demonstrate that dimer is the basic structural unit of NSP5 which undergoes oligomerization to form a complex consisting of about 20-21 dimers. The nonstructural protein 5 is hyperphosphorylated in infected cells and cellular kinases have been implicated to be involved in its phosphorylation. NSP5 contains multiple consensus sites for phosphorylation by several kinases, but the cellular kinases that specifically phosphorylate NSP5 in infected cells are yet to be identified. Previous studies from our laboratory using signaling pathway inhibitors revealed that recombinant NH¬NSP5 and its deletion mutants can be phosphorylated in vitro by purified cellular kinases and by mammalian cell extracts. These studies also showed the involvement of PI3K-Akt and MAPK signaling pathways in NSP5 phosphorylation and a negative role for GSK3β in the phosphorylation of bacterially expressed recombinant NSP5 in vitro. In the present work, using phospho-specific anti-Ser9 GSK3β antibody, we observed that GSK3β is inactivated in a rotavirus infected MA104 cells in a strain-independent manner. GSK3β¬specific small interfering RNA (siRNA-GSK3β) reduced GSK3β levels leading to increased level of synthesis of the structural rotavirus protein VP6 and NSP5 hyperphosphorylation compared to control siRNA. The pharmacological kinase inhibitors (LY294002, Genistein, PD98059, and Rapamycin) studies at the concentrations tested did not significantly affect rotavirus infection as seen from the number foci, while U0126 severely affected rotavirus replication. The results clearly demonstrated the importance of the MEK1/2 signaling pathway in the successful replication of rotavirus and NSP5 hyperphosphorylation in rotavirus-infected cells. In contrast inhibition of GSK3β activity by LiCl, increased in general, the number of foci by greater than 2-fold for all viral strains studied. These results suggest that MEK1/2 pathway majorly contributes to GSK3β inactivation in rotavirus infected cells. Thus, our results reveal that rotavirus activates both the PI3K/Akt and FAK/ERK1/2 MAPK pathways and appears to utilize them as a strategy to activate mTOR, and inhibit GSK3β through phosphorylation on serine 9, the negative regulator of rotavirus NSP5 phosphorylation, and thus facilitate translational competence of rotaviral mRNAs during virus replication cycle. It was shown previously in the laboratory by co-immunoprecipitation assay that Hsp70 interacts with rotaviral proteins VP1 and VP4 in rotavirus-infected mammalian cells. In this study, the interactions between Hsp70 with VP1 and VP4 were further evaluated in vitro by GST-pull down assay. It was observed that the N-terminal ATPase and C-terminal peptide-binding domain of Hsp70 is necessary for its direct interaction with VP1 and VP4. The presence of Hsp70 in purified double-and triple-layered virus particles further supported the observed interactions of rotaviral proteins VP1 and VP4 with Hsp70. However, the specific interaction observed between Hsp70 and rotaviral capsid proteins, VP1 and VP4 in viral particles suggests that Hsp70 has an important role during rotavirus assembly which requires further investigation.

Many neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by the accumulation of misfolded proteins that often share common morphological and biochemical features, and can similarly co-localize with several other proteins, including various chaperone proteins. Chaperone proteins, like heat shock protein 27 (HSP27), heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) and clusterin, have been implicated as potent modulators of misfolded proteins, thus may play important roles in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. The present study aims to investigate their roles in the pathogenesis of Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), and Motor neuron disease (MND) by determining their distribution and amount via immunohistochemical staining and western blotting in diseased and control subjects.There were distinct patterns of HSP27 and clusterin immunostaining in different brain regions. For HSP27, patients with AD and FTLD were in general more severely affected than were patients with MND and control subjects. For clusterin, patients with AD and FTLD were more severely affected than control subjects where neurons and glial cells were concerned, while patients with AD and control subjects were more severely affected than those with FTLD where diffuse and cored plaques were concerned. However, there were no obvious differences in the pattern of HO-1 immunostaining in various brain regions in patients with AD or FTLD relative to control subjects. Moreover, there was no association between HSP27, HO-1 and clusterin with disease or histological type, and the ‘classic’ neuropathological changes in FTLD, AD and MND were not immunoreactive to any of these proteins. There were significant correlations between the degrees of HO-1 and clusterin immunostaining in many brain areas for both AD and FTLD cases, and for all cases overall, but none between HSP27 and clusterin or HSP27 and HO-1. Present results suggest an involvement with ongoing cellular stress, misfolded or unfolded protein accumulation or the deficits/failure of other relevant protein quality control systems, in the pathogenesis of these neurodegenerative diseases. Present work may therefore have implications for the further development of ideas concerning the cause or treatment of neurodegenerative diseases where there is aberrant accumulation of misfolded, aggregated protein, and perhaps for conformational diseases in general. However, there are still many issues remain to be elucidated. Further research aimed at understanding the function and mechanisms of the chaperone system, and other protein quality control mechanisms, in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases is still needed.

Spinal cord injuries result in permanent loss of motor function, leaving those affected with long term physical and financial burdens. Strategies for spinal cord injury repair must overcome unique challenges due to scar tissue that seals off the injury site, preventing regeneration. Tissue engineering can address these challenges with scaffolds that serve as cell- and drug-delivery tools, replacing damaged tissue while simultaneously addressing the inhibitory environment on a biochemical level. To advance this approach, the choice of cells, biomaterial matrix, and drug delivery system must be investigated and evaluated. This research seeks to evaluate (1) the behaviour of murine induced pluripotent stem cells in previously characterized 3D fibrin matrices; (2) the 3D fibrin matrix as a platform to support the differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells; and (3) the ability of an affinity-based drug delivery system to control the release of emerging spinal cord injury therapeutic, heat shock protein 70 from fibrin scaffolds. / Graduate / 0541 / amy.lynn.montgomery@gmail.com

In this Master’s Thesis Research the results can be summarized from two major tasks: (1) In our first task, we utilized our two protein system (BAG-1 and HSP 70) as part of beta testing of a computational software 1 that can take three dimensional x-ray crystallography information about protein complexes and predict the strength of atom –atom interactions between amino-acid residues Open Contact predicts binding hotspots that can be used to identify short amino acid chains or peptides that mimic that particular binding segment of the larger protein. These peptides are called pepidyl-biomimetics. The peptide can potentially act as an antagonist drug by binding to the hotspot on protein A before protein B of the A-B complex can form. Two potential peptide candidates were identified. In particular, a helical peptide was discovered that demonstrated a variety of different types of atom-atom interactions. (2) Our second task is to experimentally test the helical peptide for its ability to block the binding that occurs between the 70-kilodalton Heat Shock Protein (HSP-70) and the Bcl-2 Associated Athanogene (BAG-1) Protein. As reviewed here, the binding between HSP-70 and BAG-1 elicits a cascade of cellular events that maintain high cancer growth rates and a greatly increased resistance to chemotherapy. In addition, BAG-1 has been implicated in a number of onco-signal pathways, as reviewed here, and its inhibition alone is believed to act as an agent against cancer cell growth

A paracoccidioidomicose (PCM) é uma micose sistêmica endêmica na América Latina, sendo o Brasil o país com maior número de casos. A enfermidade é adquirida por meio da inalação de propágulos de fungos do gênero Paracoccidioides e afeta principalmente os pulmões. Anteriormente, nosso grupo mostrou que o tratamento de camundongos infectados com P. brasiliensis com uma dose da proteína de estresse térmico de 60kDa recombinante de P. brasiliensis (PbHsp60r) induzia um efeito prejudicial na PCM, aumentando carga fúngica e lesão pulmonar, quando comparado a animais infectados e tratados com o veículo. No presente trabalho, buscou-se determinar se outra forma de apresentação da PbHsp60r poderia gerar um efeito benéfico em camundongos infectados com P. brasiliensis. Optou-se pelo plasmídeo pVAX1 subclonado com o gene da PbHsp60 (pVAX1-PB_HSP60). Após subclonagem do gene, foi mostrado, por Western blot, que anticorpos específicos para PbHsp60 eram produzidos por camundongos imunizados com três doses da construção e que a proteína era sintetizada por células HEK293 transfectadas com pVAX1-PB_HSP60. O tratamento dos animais infectados com três doses de pVAX1-PB_HSP60 ou pVAX1 subclonado com Hsp65 de M. leprae (pVAX1-ML_HSP65), que reconhecidamente melhora a PCM experimental, induziu uma diminuição de carga fúngica e da lesão pulmonar quando comparado com animais infectados e tratados com pVAX1 ou PBS. Uma dose de uma dessas construções não induziu melhora significativa na PCM quando comparado aos controles. Como esperado, os animais infectados e tratados com uma dose da PbHsp60r tiveram uma piora dos parâmetros de infecção, o que curiosamente não foi observado com os animais tratados com três doses dessa proteína recombinante, cuja melhora foi muito similar a dos animais infectados e tratados com três doses das construções plasmidiais. Ao pesquisar porque uma dose induz piora da infecção, observouse que PbHsp60r induz morte de linfócitos esplênicos in vitro, em um mecanismo dependente de TLR4, proteína adaptadora TRIF e receptor 1 de TNF. Esses resultados abrem perspectivas de se avaliar a importância da morte de células da resposta imunológica no curso da infecção por P. brasiliensis. / Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is a systemic mycosis endemic in Latin America and Brazil, which holds most of the PCM cases. PCM is acquired through the inhalation of propagules of fungi from genus Paracoccidioides and mainly affects the lungs. We have previously shown that P. brasiliensis-infected mice treated with single dose of recombinant 60-kDa-heat shock protein from P. brasiliensis (rPbHsp60) had a worsening of infection when compared with animals only infected. In this study, we investigate whether the treatment of infected mice with PbHsp60 gene cloned into a plasmid (pVAX1-PB_HSP60) would render an efficient immune response and improvement of the disease. After cloning of the PbHsp60 gene, we first showed that immunization of mice with three doses of pVAX1-PB_HSP60 induced production of specific anti-PbHsp60 antibody and that pVAX1-PB_HSP60-transfected HEK293 cells synthesized the PbHsp60. Interestingly, mice treated with three doses, but not single dose, of pVAX1-PB_HSP60, and pVAX1 subcloned with Hsp65 from Mycobacterium leprae (pVAX1- ML_HSP65), which induces a beneficial effect in experimental PCM, had an improvement in fungal load and lung injury when compared with infected mice treated with pVAX1 or PBS. Unlike animals infected and treated with single dose of rPbHsp60, which had a worsening of infection parameters, treatment with three doses of rPbHsp60 interestingly induced a beneficial effect in the infected animals, as seen with the plasmid constructs. In investigating the causes of this worsening of PCM triggered by injection of a single dose of protein, we showed that rPbHsp60 induced the death of splenic lymphocytes in vitro in a mechanism dependent on Tolllike receptor 4, TRIF adapter protein and TNF receptor 1. These results open perspectives to evaluate the importance of cell death of the immune response in the course of P. brasiliensis infection.

As proteínas de choque térmico (HSPs) são proteínas presentes nas células em condições normais e supra-expressadas em condições de estresse e choque térmico. O laser de diodo tem sido utilizado em diversos tratamentos na odontologia, dentre eles na atenuação de sintomas e na aceleração do reparo de úlceras traumáticas. O objetivo deste estudo foi verificar, através de análise imunoistoquímica da expressão das HSPs (Hsp27 e Hsp 47) e da medição de temperatura por intermédio de câmera termográfica, se o laser de diodo modifica, (e quanto modifica) a temperatura local, bem como se há alteração no padrão de expressão das proteínas citadas em três regiões distintas do fragmento analisado. Para este estudo, foram feitos testes in vitro e in vivo. Para os testes in vivo, foram utilizados 56 ratos, nos quais foi induzida úlcera em ventre lingual. Os animais foram divididos em 4 grupos: GL - grupo ulcerado com posterior irradiação com laser (parâmetros: laser diodo, 0,5 W de potência, pulsado (10 Hz), por 40 segundos (método varredura), 80J/cm2 de energia total (área de 0,25cm2) Má, e a energia por ponto?); GN - grupo ulcerado sem nenhum tratamento posterior; CP - grupo controle sem úlcera e irradiado com laser (mesmos parâmetros de GL); e CN - grupo controle sem úlcera e sem nenhum tratamento posterior. O teste in vitro foi destinado à medição da temperatura durante a irradiação laser, quando utilizaram-se línguas de ratos previamente ulceradas e extirpadas, as quais foram irradiadas com os parâmetros para o teste in vivo. Na superfície irradiada, houve aumento médio de temperatura em torno de 6,7C e, na região mais distante dessa superfície, de 2,7C. Na análise semiquantitativa da expressão imunoistoquímica da Hsp27, observou-se padrão de marcação mais intenso em GL comparando-se a GN e aos demais grupos. Na análise quantitativa da Hsp47, houve maior quantidade de células positivas no GL em relação aos demais grupos, principalmente nas regiões mais próximas da superfície irradiada. Concluiu-se que a irradiação laser provocou aumento de temperatura local, bem como desencadeou padrões de intensidade maiores e diferentes da Hsp27 e da Hsp47 em relação aos demais grupos. Isso indica que o tecido irradiado sofreu maior estresse celular, com resposta tecidual de intensa migração e diferenciação celular, bem como de maior síntese colagênica. / Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are proteins present in cells under normal conditions and over-expressed in terms of stress and thermal shock. The laser diode has been used in various treatments in dentistry, to reduce symptoms and accelerate the repair of traumatic ulcers. The aim of this study was to verify, by means of immunohistochemical expression analysis of HSPs (Hsp27 and Hsp 47) and temperature measurement using a thermographic camera, whether diode laser changes the local temperature (and how much the temperature changes), and whether there is a change in expression pattern of the above-mentioned protein in three distinct regions of the analyzed fragment. For this study, some of the tests were conducted in vitro and others in vivo. For the in vivo tests, 56 rats were used, in which ulcers were induced on the ventral surface of the tongue. The animals were divided into 4 groups: GL-group with ulcer and later laser irradiation (diode laser parameters: 0.5 W power, pulsed (10 Hz), for 40 seconds (defocused), 80J/cm2 total power in area (0.25cm2) GN- group with ulcer and without any further processing; CP- control group without ulcer and with laser irradiation (same parameters as in GL); and GN-control group without ulcer and without any further processing. The in vitro tests were conducted to measure temperature during laser irradiation, using the tongues that had previously been ulcerated in rats, and later removed and irradiated with the same parameters as those used for the in vivo test. In the irradiated surface, there was an increase in mean temperature of around 6.7oC, and in the region more distant from this surface, an increase of 2.7 oC. In the semi-quantitative analysis of immunohistochemical expression of Hsp27, greater expression of Hsp27 was shown in GL in comparison with the other groups in general. In quantitative analysis of Hsp47, there was a larger quantity of positive cells in GL, when compared with the other groups, particularly in the regions closest to irradiated surface. It was concluded that the irradiation laser caused local temperature increase, and also set off greater and different patterns of intensity of Hsp27 and Hsp47, in comparison with those of the other groups. This indicates that the irradiated tissue suffered higher cellular stress, with tissue response of intense migration and cell differentiation, as well as increased collagen synthesis.

Background: Recent research has demonstrated the presence of heat being an effective stimulus for increasing skeletal muscle and strength. The exposure of increased environmental temperature combined with resistance training has been shown to amplify muscle adaptation for hypertrophy and strength. However, research into the potential effects of using heat stress combined with resistance training to increase performance criteria, such as speed and agility, are minimal. Utilizing a hot environment coupled with an intense exercise regime has been considered as a potential aid for sport preparation given the evidence that heat stress has on promoting hypertrophy and strength. The desired result is to enhance athletic performance. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine if (a) performing resistance training in a hot environment for 10 weeks induces greater increases in muscle mass and (b) whether this combination improves performance in speed, agility and strength compared to resistance training in a standard temperate environment. Methods: 17 healthy male adults, who have undergone a consistent regime of resistance training in the six months leading up to the study, were distributed at random into two groups; (1) Intervention group (Heat n=8) training in 40°C and (2) control group (Con, n=9) training in 23°C. Each group would follow a 10-week resistance exercise protocol. To monitor time-course adaptations, lean body mass, speed, agility and strength were measured at baseline, week 5 and week 10. Results: Over the selected training period, there was no statistically significant difference observed between the two groups or time x group interaction, over the 10-week exercise duration with respect to lean body mass, speed, agility or strength. Conclusion: Compared to the resistance training regime in the standard temperature condition of 23°C (group two), training results suggest heat stress in the hot environment at 40°C (group one) had no effective stimulus in amplifying hypertrophic adaptations in skeletal muscle nor in increasing performance in speed, agility or strength. Certain hypothetical factors were implicated for heat stress being ineffective such as potential counter-productive aspects from heat exposure or flawed methodology. / Heat Effects on Adaptations to Resistance Training, Victoria University

A paracoccidioidomicose (PCM) é uma micose sistêmica endêmica na América Latina, sendo o Brasil o país com maior número de casos. A enfermidade é adquirida por meio da inalação de propágulos de fungos do gênero Paracoccidioides e afeta principalmente os pulmões. Anteriormente, nosso grupo mostrou que o tratamento de camundongos infectados com P. brasiliensis com uma dose da proteína de estresse térmico de 60kDa recombinante de P. brasiliensis (PbHsp60r) induzia um efeito prejudicial na PCM, aumentando carga fúngica e lesão pulmonar, quando comparado a animais infectados e tratados com o veículo. No presente trabalho, buscou-se determinar se outra forma de apresentação da PbHsp60r poderia gerar um efeito benéfico em camundongos infectados com P. brasiliensis. Optou-se pelo plasmídeo pVAX1 subclonado com o gene da PbHsp60 (pVAX1-PB_HSP60). Após subclonagem do gene, foi mostrado, por Western blot, que anticorpos específicos para PbHsp60 eram produzidos por camundongos imunizados com três doses da construção e que a proteína era sintetizada por células HEK293 transfectadas com pVAX1-PB_HSP60. O tratamento dos animais infectados com três doses de pVAX1-PB_HSP60 ou pVAX1 subclonado com Hsp65 de M. leprae (pVAX1-ML_HSP65), que reconhecidamente melhora a PCM experimental, induziu uma diminuição de carga fúngica e da lesão pulmonar quando comparado com animais infectados e tratados com pVAX1 ou PBS. Uma dose de uma dessas construções não induziu melhora significativa na PCM quando comparado aos controles. Como esperado, os animais infectados e tratados com uma dose da PbHsp60r tiveram uma piora dos parâmetros de infecção, o que curiosamente não foi observado com os animais tratados com três doses dessa proteína recombinante, cuja melhora foi muito similar a dos animais infectados e tratados com três doses das construções plasmidiais. Ao pesquisar porque uma dose induz piora da infecção, observouse que PbHsp60r induz morte de linfócitos esplênicos in vitro, em um mecanismo dependente de TLR4, proteína adaptadora TRIF e receptor 1 de TNF. Esses resultados abrem perspectivas de se avaliar a importância da morte de células da resposta imunológica no curso da infecção por P. brasiliensis. / Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is a systemic mycosis endemic in Latin America and Brazil, which holds most of the PCM cases. PCM is acquired through the inhalation of propagules of fungi from genus Paracoccidioides and mainly affects the lungs. We have previously shown that P. brasiliensis-infected mice treated with single dose of recombinant 60-kDa-heat shock protein from P. brasiliensis (rPbHsp60) had a worsening of infection when compared with animals only infected. In this study, we investigate whether the treatment of infected mice with PbHsp60 gene cloned into a plasmid (pVAX1-PB_HSP60) would render an efficient immune response and improvement of the disease. After cloning of the PbHsp60 gene, we first showed that immunization of mice with three doses of pVAX1-PB_HSP60 induced production of specific anti-PbHsp60 antibody and that pVAX1-PB_HSP60-transfected HEK293 cells synthesized the PbHsp60. Interestingly, mice treated with three doses, but not single dose, of pVAX1-PB_HSP60, and pVAX1 subcloned with Hsp65 from Mycobacterium leprae (pVAX1- ML_HSP65), which induces a beneficial effect in experimental PCM, had an improvement in fungal load and lung injury when compared with infected mice treated with pVAX1 or PBS. Unlike animals infected and treated with single dose of rPbHsp60, which had a worsening of infection parameters, treatment with three doses of rPbHsp60 interestingly induced a beneficial effect in the infected animals, as seen with the plasmid constructs. In investigating the causes of this worsening of PCM triggered by injection of a single dose of protein, we showed that rPbHsp60 induced the death of splenic lymphocytes in vitro in a mechanism dependent on Tolllike receptor 4, TRIF adapter protein and TNF receptor 1. These results open perspectives to evaluate the importance of cell death of the immune response in the course of P. brasiliensis infection.