AUTHOR=Penna Claudia , Sorge Matteo , Femminò Saveria , Pagliaro Pasquale , Brancaccio Mara TITLE=Redox Aspects of Chaperones in Cardiac Function JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physiology VOLUME=9 YEAR=2018 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2018.00216 DOI=10.3389/fphys.2018.00216 ISSN=1664-042X ABSTRACT=

Molecular chaperones are stress proteins that allow the correct folding or unfolding as well as the assembly or disassembly of macromolecular cellular components. Changes in expression and post-translational modifications of chaperones have been linked to a number of age- and stress-related diseases including cancer, neurodegeneration, and cardiovascular diseases. Redox sensible post-translational modifications, such as S-nitrosylation, glutathionylation and phosphorylation of chaperone proteins have been reported. Redox-dependent regulation of chaperones is likely to be a phenomenon involved in metabolic processes and may represent an adaptive response to several stress conditions, especially within mitochondria, where it impacts cellular bioenergetics. These post-translational modifications might underlie the mechanisms leading to cardioprotection by conditioning maneuvers as well as to ischemia/reperfusion injury. In this review, we discuss this topic and focus on two important aspects of redox-regulated chaperones, namely redox regulation of mitochondrial chaperone function and cardiac protection against ischemia/reperfusion injury.