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Evolution

A helping hand

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 6, page 801 (2005)Cite this article

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As a chaperone for many signal transducers, HSP90 buffers the effects of genetic variation by enabling the cell to tolerate mutations. Although HSP90 is highly inducible following environmental stress, the demand that occurs due to stress-induced protein misfolding can outpace its induction, enabling previously silent mutations to act combinatorially and generate new phenotypes. It now seems that HSP90 has another role in the emergence of new traits — by allowing a mutation to have immediate effects, rather than buffering against it, HSP90 might potentiate the appearance of new phenotypes.

Cowen and Lindquist examined the role of HSP90 in the evolution of resistance to antifungal drugs. Using rapid selection of three strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with varying levels of HSP90, they showed that the development of resistance depended on high-level expression of HSP90. Moreover, HSP90 was required to maintain resistance.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Cowen, L. & Lindquist, S. Hsp90 potentiates the rapid evolution of new traits: drug resistance in diverse fungi. Science 309, 2185–2189 (2005)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Rutherford, S. L. Between genotype and phenotype: protein chaperones and evolvability. Nature Rev. Genet. 4, 263–274 (2003)

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  1. Associate Editor, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery,

    Joanna Owens

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  1. Joanna Owens
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Owens, J. A helping hand. Nat Rev Genet 6, 801 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1738

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1738

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