Nearly 100 proteins are known to be regulated by hsp90. Most of these substrates or "client proteins" are involved in signal transduction, and they are brought into complex with hsp90 by a multiprotein hsp90/hsp70-based chaperone machinery. In addition to binding substrate proteins at the chaperone site(s), hsp90 binds cofactors at other sites that are part of the heterocomplex assembly machinery as well as immunophilins that connect assembled substrate*hsp90 complexes to protein-trafficking systems. In the 5 years since we last reviewed this subject, much has been learned about hsp90 structure, nucleotide-binding, and cochaperone interactions; the most important concept is that ATP hydrolysis by an intrinsic ATPase activity results in a conformational change in hsp90 that is required to induce conformational change in a substrate protein. The conformational change induced in steroid receptors is an opening of the steroid-binding cleft so that it can be accessed by steroid. We have now developed a minimal system of five purified proteins-hsp90, hsp70, Hop, hsp40, and p23- that assembles stable receptor*hsp90 heterocomplexes. An hsp90*Hop*hsp70*hsp40 complex opens the cleft in an ATP-dependent process to produce a receptor*hsp90 heterocomplex with hsp90 in its ATP-bound conformation, and p23 then interacts with the hsp90 to stabilize the complex. Stepwise assembly experiments have shown that hsp70 and hsp40 first interact with the receptor in an ATP-dependent reaction to produce a receptor*hsp70*hsp40 complex that is "primed" to be activated to the steroid-binding state in a second ATP-dependent step with hsp90, Hop, and p23. Successful use of the five-protein system with other substrates indicates that it can assemble signal protein*hsp90 heterocomplexes whether the substrate is a receptor, a protein kinase, or a transcription factor. This purified system should facilitate understanding of how eukaryotic hsp70 and hsp90 work together as essential components of a process that alters the conformations of substrate proteins to states that respond in signal transduction.

We have provided a historical perspective on a body of steroid receptor research dealing with the structure and physiological significance of the untransformed 9S receptor that has often confused both novice and expert investigators. The frequent controversies and equivocations of earlier studies were due to the fact that the native, hormone-free state of these receptors is a large multiprotein complex that resisted description for many years because of its unstable and dynamic nature. The untransformed 9S state of the steroid and dioxin receptors has provided a unique system for studying the function of the ubiquitous, abundant, and conserved heat shock protein, hsp90. The hormonal control of receptor association with hsp90 provided a method of manipulating the receptor heterocomplex in a manner that was physiologically meaningful. For several steroid receptors, binding to hsp90 was required for the receptor to be in a native hormone-binding state, and for all of the receptors, hormone binding promoted dissociation of the receptor from hsp90 and conversion of the receptor to the DNA-binding state. Although the complexes between tyrosine kinases and hsp90 were discovered earlier, the hormonal regulation or steroid receptor association with hsp90 permitted much more rapid and facile study of hsp90 function. The observations that hsp90 binds to the receptors through their HBDs and that these domains can be fused to structurally different proteins bringing their function under hormonal control provided a powerful linkage between the hormonal regulation of receptor binding to hsp90 and the initial step in steroid hormone action. Because the 9S receptor hsp90 heterocomplexes could be physically stabilized by molybdate, their protein composition could be readily studied, and it became clear that these complexes are multiprotein structures containing a number of unique proteins, such as FKBP51, FKBP52, CyP-40, and p23, that were discovered because of their presence in these structures. Further analysis showed that hsp90 itself exists in a variety of native multiprotein heterocomplexes independent of steroid receptors and other 'substrate' proteins. Cell-free systems can now be used to study the formation of receptor heterocomplexes. As we outlined in the scheme of Fig. 1, the multicomponent receptor-hsp90 heterocomplex assembly system is being reconstituted, and the importance of individual proteins, such as hsp70, p60, and p23, in the assembly process is becoming recognized. It should be noted that our understanding of the mechanism and purpose of steroid receptor heterocomplex assembly is still at an early stage. We can now speculate on the roles of receptor-associated proteins in receptor action, both as individuals and as a group, but their actual functions are still vague or unknown. We can make realistic models about the chaperoning and trafficking of steroid receptors, but we don't yet know how these processes occur, we don't know where chaperoning occurs in the cell (e.g. Is it limited to the cytoplasm? Is it a ...

The molecular chaperone heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) and its accessory cochaperones function by facilitating the structural maturation and complex assembly of client proteins, including steroid hormone receptors and selected kinases. By promoting the activity and stability of these signaling proteins, Hsp90 has emerged as a critical modulator in cell signaling. Here, we present evidence that Hsp90 chaperone activity is regulated by reversible acetylation and controlled by the deacetylase HDAC6. We show that HDAC6 functions as an Hsp90 deacetylase. Inactivation of HDAC6 leads to Hsp90 hyperacetylation, its dissociation from an essential cochaperone, p23, and a loss of chaperone activity. In HDAC6-deficient cells, Hsp90-dependent maturation of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is compromised, resulting in GR defective in ligand binding, nuclear translocation, and transcriptional activation. Our results identify Hsp90 as a target of HDAC6 and suggest reversible acetylation as a unique mechanism that regulates Hsp90 chaperone complex activity.

We have provided a historical perspective on a body of steroid receptor research dealing with the structure and physiological significance of the untransformed 9S receptor that has often confused both novice and expert investigators. The frequent controversies and equivocations of earlier studies were due to the fact that the native, hormone-free state of these receptors is a large multiprotein complex that resisted description for many years because of its unstable and dynamic nature. The untransformed 9S state of the steroid and dioxin receptors has provided a unique system for studying the function of the ubiquitous, abundant, and conserved heat shock protein, hsp90. The hormonal control of receptor association with hsp90 provided a method of manipulating the receptor heterocomplex in a manner that was physiologically meaningful. For several steroid receptors, binding to hsp90 was required for the receptor to be in a native hormone-binding state, and for all of the receptors, hormone binding promoted dissociation of the receptor from hsp90 and conversion of the receptor to the DNA-binding state. Although the complexes between tyrosine kinases and hsp90 were discovered earlier, the hormonal regulation or steroid receptor association with hsp90 permitted much more rapid and facile study of hsp90 function. The observations that hsp90 binds to the receptors through their HBDs and that these domains can be fused to structurally different proteins bringing their function under hormonal control provided a powerful linkage between the hormonal regulation of receptor binding to hsp90 and the initial step in steroid hormone action. Because the 9S receptor hsp90 heterocomplexes could be physically stabilized by molybdate, their protein composition could be readily studied, and it became clear that these complexes are multiprotein structures containing a number of unique proteins, such as FKBP51, FKBP52, CyP-40, and p23, that were discovered because of their presence in these structures. Further analysis showed that hsp90 itself exists in a variety of native multiprotein heterocomplexes independent of steroid receptors and other 'substrate' proteins. Cell-free systems can now be used to study the formation of receptor heterocomplexes. As we outlined in the scheme of Fig. 1, the multicomponent receptor-hsp90 heterocomplex assembly system is being reconstituted, and the importance of individual proteins, such as hsp70, p60, and p23, in the assembly process is becoming recognized. It should be noted that our understanding of the mechanism and purpose of steroid receptor heterocomplex assembly is still at an early stage. We can now speculate on the roles of receptor-associated proteins in receptor action, both as individuals and as a group, but their actual functions are still vague or unknown. We can make realistic models about the chaperoning and trafficking of steroid receptors, but we don't yet know how these processes occur, we don't know where chaperoning occurs in the cell (e.g. Is it limited to the cytoplasm? Is it a ...

The multicomponent heat-shock protein (hsp) 90-based chaperone system is an ubiquitous protein-folding system in the cytoplasm of eukaryotes. Several signal transduction systems utilize an interaction with hsp90 as an essential component of the signaling pathway. The steroid and dioxin receptors are bound to hsp90 through their hormone-binding domains, and several of them must be bound to hsp90 in order to have a ligand-binding site. The binding of ligands to these receptors promotes their dissociation from hsp90, an event that is the first step in their signaling pathways. Several protein kinases, including the Src and Raf components of the MAP kinase system, are also bound to hsp90. Genetic studies in yeast have demonstrated that hsp90 is required for normal signaling via steroid and dioxin receptors and for the activity of Src in vivo. The hsp90-based chaperone system has been reconstituted from purified components, permitting detailed analysis of the molecular basis of the chaperone's role in signal transduction.

A variety of transcription factors and protein kinases involved in signal transduction are recovered from cells in heterocomplexes containing the abundant protein chaperone hsp90. Genetic studies in yeast have demonstrated that binding of steroid receptors, the dioxin receptor, and some protein kinases to hsp90 is critical for their signal transducing function in vivo. These heterocomplexes are formed by a multiprotein chaperone machinery consisting of at least four ubiquitous proteins--hsp90, hsp70, p60 and p23. Four high-molecular-weight immunophilins have been discovered as components of steroid receptor or other transcription factor complexes with hsp90. The immunophilins, protein chaperones with prolyl isomerase activity, bind the immunosuppressant drugs FK506 or CyP-40. These immunophilins all bind via tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) domains to a single TPR binding site on each hsp90 dimer, and multiple heterocomplexes exist for each protein chaperoned by hsp90 according to the immunophilin that is bound to this TPR binding site at any time. Three components of the MAP kinase signalling system (Src, Raf, and Mek) exist in complexes with hsp90 and a 50-kDa protein that is the mammalian homolog of the yeast cell cycle control protein cdc37. The p50cdc37 binds to hsp90 at a site that is close to but different from the TPR binding site of the immunophilins, and like the immunophilins, p50cdc37 is thought to be involved in targeting and trafficking of the protein kinases. The recent introduction of the benzoquinone antibiotic geldanamycin has facilitated the identification of proteins that are chaperoned by the hsp90-based system. Geldanamycin binds to members of the hsp90 protein family, blocking assembly of hsp90 heterocomplexes and destabilizing preformed heterocomplexes. In the presence of geldanamycin, the function of hsp90-chaperoned proteins is disrupted, and the proteins undergo rapid degradation by an ubiquitin-dependent proteasomal mechanism. It is becoming clear that hsp90 chaperoning is not only essential to a variety of signal transduction pathways, but is critical for proper folding, stabilization, and trafficking of an expanding list of proteins.

Here, we also show that native GR⅐hsp90 heterocomplexes immunoadsorbed from L cell cytosol contain dynein and that GR⅐hsp90 heterocomplexes assembled in reticulocyte lysate contain cytoplasmic dynein in a manner that is competed by the PPIase domain of FKBP52.Steroid receptors move continuously into and out of the nucleus (Refs. 1-4; for review, see Ref. 5), and, depending upon the receptor, the hormone-free, untransformed receptor may have a predominantly nuclear or cytoplasmic localization. The hormone-free glucocorticoid receptor (GR) 1 is localized to the cytoplasm of most cells, and after steroid binding and transformation, it translocates to the nucleus (6 -8). Several studies with inhibitors suggest that the multiprotein hsp90-based chaperone system and the hsp90-binding immunophilin FKBP52 are involved in movement of the GR along microtubular tracks to the nucleus (for review, see Ref. 9). Assembly of receptors into heterocomplexes with hsp90 is a dynamic process (10), and it has been shown that the GR and hsp90 can move together from the cytoplasm to the nucleus (11). A couple of observations suggest that the role of hsp90 in receptor movement is likely to involve dynamic assembly and disassembly of GR⅐hsp90 heterocomplexes. For example, Yang and DeFranco (12) showed that molybdate, which binds to hsp90 and stabilizes GR⅐hsp90 heterocomplexes in vivo (13), traps the GR in the cytoplasm of cells continuously exposed to hormone. Molybdate in this case was thought to inhibit reimport of the GR into the nucleus by inhibiting the dynamic cycling of receptors into and out of their complexes with the hsp90 chaperone. Also, geldanamycin, an antibiotic that binds to the nucleotide binding site on hsp90 (14) and prevents formation of normal receptor⅐hsp90 heterocomplexes (15), impedes steroid-induced movement of the GR from the cytoplasm to the nucleus (16, 17).Some localization studies have shown the untransformed GR to colocalize with microtubules (for review, see Ref. 18), but the evidence supporting movement along microtubular tracks is indirect. Although microtubule disrupting agents, such as colcemid, do not affect the overall rate of steroid-dependent receptor translocation to the nucleus (8, 19), they eliminate the hsp90-dependent mode of receptor movement (17). Using a fusion protein of murine GR with Aequorea green fluorescent protein (GFP), we found that steroid-dependent GFP-GR translocation to the nucleus is rapid (t1 ⁄2 ϭ ϳ5 min) both in cells with intact cytoskeleton and in cells with disrupted cytoskeletal networks (17). However, in cells with normal cytoskeleton, the hsp90 inhibitor geldanamycin slowed translocation of the GFP-GR by an order of magnitude (t1 ⁄2 ϭ ϳ45 min), whereas in cells with colcemid-disrupted microtubules, geldanamycin had no effect on the translocation rate (t1 ⁄2 ϭ ϳ5 min). This suggests two mechanisms of GR movement. Under physiological conditions where the cytoskeleton is intact, diffusion is limited, and the GFP-GR utilizes a movement machinery in which the hsp90 heter...

We previously identified a protein-serine phosphatase designated PP5, based on the binding of its tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) domain to the atrial natriuretic peptide receptor (Chinkers, M. (1994) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 91, 11075-11079). We have now identified another protein complex to which PP5 is targeted through its TPR domain. A 90-kDa protein, identified as heat shock protein 90 (hsp90) by immunoblotting, specifically co-immunoprecipitated from COS-7 cell lysates with the FLAG-tagged TPR domain of PP5. hsp90 also co-immunoprecipitated with full-length FLAG-tagged PP5 overexpressed in COS-7 cells and with endogenous PP5 from untransfected COS-7 cells or rat brain. During gel filtration, PP5 and hsp90 comigrated in a high molecular weight complex. Since glucocorticoid receptors (GR) exist as large heterocomplexes containing hsp90 bound to TPR proteins, we hypothesized that PP5 might be associated with these complexes. Consistent with this hypothesis, PP5 specifically co-immunoprecipitated with GR from mouse L cell lysates. To test the functional importance of this TPR-mediated association in living cells, we used a dominant negative PP5 mutant consisting only of its TPR domain. The mutant inhibited GRmediated transactivation by approximately 70% in transfected CV-1 cells. This is the first evidence that the TPR proteins in steroid receptor heterocomplexes may be required for signaling in vivo.