Mitochondrial mortalin and cytosolic Hsp70 are essential chaperones overexpressed in cancer cells. Our goals were to reproduce our earlier findings of elevated circulating levels of mortalin and Hsp70 in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients with a larger patient cohort, to compare death risk assessment of mortalin, Hsp70, CEA and C19-9 and to assess their prognostic value in various CRC stages. Mortalin, Hsp70, CEA and CA19-9 levels were determined in sera of 235 CRC patients enrolled in the study and followed up 5 years after surgery. Association between their concentrations and patients' survival was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier estimator and subjected to Cox Proportional hazards analysis. Serum level of mortalin was independent of that of Hsp70, CEA and CA19-9, whereas Hsp70 level weakly correlated with CEA and CA19-9 levels. Improved short-term survival was found in early or advanced disease stages associated with lower mortalin and Hsp70 levels. Cox regression analysis showed a high mortality hazard (HR 5 3.7, p < 0.001) in patients with both high mortalin and Hsp70 circulating levels. Multivariate analysis showed that high mortalin and Hsp70 significantly enhances risk score over a baseline model of age, number of affected lymph nodes, CEA, CA19-9, disease stage and perioperative therapy. Analysis of mortalin and Hsp70 in CRC patients' sera adds a high prognostic value to TNM stage and to CEA and CA19-9 and identifies patients with lower or higher survival probability in all CRC stages. Determination of mortalin and Hsp70 in blood could be a useful additive prognostic tool in guiding clinical management of patients.

Stationary-phase cultures have been used as an important model of aging, a complex process involving multiple pathways and signaling networks. However, the molecular processes underlying stress response of non-dividing cells are poorly understood, although deteriorated stress response is one of the hallmarks of aging. The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a valuable model organism to study the genetics of aging, because yeast ages within days and are amenable to genetic manipulations. As a unicellular organism, yeast has evolved robust systems to respond to environmental challenges. This response is orchestrated largely by the conserved transcription factor Hsf1, which in S. cerevisiae regulates expression of multiple genes in response to diverse stresses. Here we demonstrate that Hsf1 response to heat shock and oxidative stress deteriorates during yeast transition from exponential growth to stationary-phase, whereas Hsf1 activation by glucose starvation is maintained. Overexpressing Hsf1 does not significantly improve heat shock response, indicating that Hsf1 dwindling is not the major cause for Hsf1 attenuated response in stationary-phase yeast. Rather, factors that participate in Hsf1 activation appear to be compromised. We uncover two factors, Yap1 and Sir2, which discretely function in Hsf1 activation by oxidative stress and heat shock. In Δyap1 mutant, Hsf1 does not respond to oxidative stress, while in Δsir2 mutant, Hsf1 does not respond to heat shock. Moreover, excess Sir2 mimics the heat shock response. This role of the NAD+-dependent Sir2 is supported by our finding that supplementing NAD+ precursors improves Hsf1 heat shock response in stationary-phase yeast, especially when combined with expression of excess Sir2. Finally, the combination of excess Hsf1, excess Sir2 and NAD+ precursors rejuvenates the heat shock response.

Cancer cells have developed numerous strategies to maintain their proliferative capacity and to withstand different kinds of stress. The mitochondrial stress-70 protein named glucose regulated protein 75 (GRP75), also known as mortalin, is an intriguing cancer pro-survival factor. It is constitutively expressed in normal tissues but is upregulated in many tumors, and was shown to be a cancer prognostic biomarker. Mortalin is an inhibitor of complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) and may therefore protect cells from antibody-based immunotherapy. To target mortalin for cancer therapy, our laboratory designed several mortalin mimetic peptides with sequences predicted to be involved in mortalin binding to its client proteins. The peptides were synthesized with a C-terminal transactivator of transcription sequence. By using cell death methodologies, the mechanism of action of the mortalin mimetic peptides on cancer cells was studied. Two peptides in particular, Mot-P2 and Mot-P7, were found to be highly toxic to lymphoma and ovarian, breast and prostate carcinoma cells. The analysis of their mode of action revealed that they may induce, within minutes, plasma membrane perturbations and mitochondrial stress. Furthermore, Mot-P2 and Mot-P7 activated necrotic cell death, leading to plasma membrane perforation, mitochondrial inner membrane depolarization and decrease in ATP level. In addition, Mot-P7, but not Mot-P2, required extracellular calcium ions to fully mediate cell death and was partially inhibited by plasma membrane cholesterol. At sub-toxic concentrations, the two peptides moderately inhibited cancer cell proliferation and blocked cell cycle at G2/M. Both peptides may bind intracellularly to mortalin and/or a mortalin-binding protein, hence knocking down mortalin expression reduced cell death. Combining treatment with Mot-P2 or Mot-P7 and CDC resulted in increased cell death. This study identified highly cytotoxic mortalin mimetic peptides that may be used as monotherapy or combined with complement-activating antibody therapy to target mortalin for precision cancer therapy.