Caenorhabditis elegans small heat-shock protein HSP-12.6 has a highly specialized protective function towards muscle thick filaments in vivo.

ABSTRACT: Small heat-shock proteins (sHSPs) are an ancient and diverse class of molecular chaperones, acting as a first line of defence against proteotoxic stresses. While the canonical sHSPs prevent uncontrollable aggregation of a broad range of non-native substrates, a subset of sHSPs do not exhibit this broad activity in vitro, and their functions in vivo are poorly understood. Interestingly, several such sHSPs are selectively expressed in muscle tissues, including by myogenic programmes, indicating probable functional roles. We examined in vivo function of Caenorhabditis elegans HSP-12.6, which possesses no chaperone activity in vitro but regulates lifespan, and is developmentally induced in the muscles of long-lived dauer animals. We found that HSP-12.6 exhibits exceptional selectivity in prote

SUBMITTER: Fern A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC13628057 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature