Little is known about the pathway leading from a stressful stimulus such as hyperthermia or cadmium to a malformation, and the possibility of the heat shock response being linked to this phenomenon prompted the studies in this thesis. In order to determine the relationship between the ability of heat or cadmium to induce a heat shock response and the ability of these stressors to induce abnormal embryogenesis, rat embryos were cultured during organogenesis and the steady-state mRNAs of two heat shock proteins were used as indicators of the stress response in these embryos. The extent of mRNA accumulation for each heat shock protein varied depending on the tissue examined. When embryos were cultured in the presence of cadmium chloride, hsp27 and hsp70 mRNAs took much longer to accumulate compared to those observed following heat shock. Thus, the time course of heat shock protein mRNA accumulation was quite different in embryos exposed to cadmium from those exposed to hyperthermia. In addition, the concentrations of hsp27 and hsp70 mRNA appears to be differentially regulated in both embryo and yolk sac tissues for embryos treated with heat or cadmium. In conclusion, mammalian embryos are able to mount a heat shock response through the accumulation of hsp27 and hsp70 mRNAs in response to hyperthermia or cadmium treatments. The extent of this response appears to correlate with the teratogenicity effects of hyperthermia but not with those of cadmium.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.56970 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Tseng, Caroline |
| Contributors | Hales, B. F. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001320113, proquestno: AAIMM87709, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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