HSP70 has widely been induced in in vivo hyperthermia conditions in various organisms to study gene regulation and recently neuroprotectve roles of the induced gene expression under varying conditions. We investigated different responses among various tissues in zebrafish under heat shock to evaluate whether spatial and temporal expression pattern of zebrafish (z) hsp70 in transcriptional and translational level under heat shock stress in different brain regions. Heat shock groups were given for 1 h at after recovery by transferring the treated animals back to for 1, 2 and 24 h for recovery, respectively. Control (CTRL) group was kept at . At the end of treatments, five animals were collected and used for isolation of total RNAs and peptides from the corresponding tissues. Expression of zhsp70 mRNA showed different patterns in recovery periods in the tissues including the brain, eye, intestines, muscles, heart and testis by RT-PCR. Unlike the RT-PCR analysis, Northern blot analysis demonstrated nearly 30-fold increase in zhsp70 at 1 h heat shock, suggesting that RT-PCR may not be appropriate in unmasking regulation of the time-dependent zhsp70 expression. In the experiment involving different brain regions, the cerebellum showed gradual activation at 1 h to R1h and decreases in R2h and R24h, while the medulla oblongata and optic tectum showed gradual increase at R1h and decrease at R24h, indicating that different brain tissues respond specifically to heat shock in inducing zhsp70 and recovering from the heat shock status. Western blot analysis also demonstrated that the intracellular levels of zHSP70 in three different brain regions including the cerebellum, medulla oblongata and optic tectum are differently induced and recovered to normal state. These results clearly demonstrate that different regions of the body and the brain tissues are responding differently to heat shock in the aspects of its level of expression and speed of recovery.

• Hwang Chang-Nam
• Lee Dong-Ho
• Lee Sang-Ho