Glucose-regulated protein 94 is the HSP90-like protein in the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum and therefore it chaperones secreted and membrane proteins. It has essential functions in development and physiology of multicellular organisms, at least in part because of this unique clientele. GRP94 shares many biochemical features with other HSP90 proteins, in particular its domain structure and ATPase activity, but also displays distinct activities, such as calcium binding, necessitates by the conditions in the endoplasmic reticulum. GRP94’s mode of action varies from the general HSP90 theme in the conformational changes induced by nucleotide binding, and in its interactions with co-chaperones, which are very different from known cytosolic co-chaperones. GRP94 is more selective than many of the ER chaperones and the basis for this selectivity remain obscure. Recent development of molecular tools and functional assays has expanded the spectrum of clients that rely on GRP94 activity, but it is still not clear how the chaperone binds them, or what aspect of folding it impacts. These mechanistic questions and the regulation of GRP94 activity by other proteins and by post-translational modification differences pose new questions and present future research avenues.

During their transit through the endoplasmic reticulum, newly synthesized light and heavy chains of immunoglobulins associate with two endoplasmic reticulum stress proteins. BiP/GRP78, a member of the HSP70 family, binds these polypeptides, presumably through promiscuously exposed hydrophobic sequences, soon after their translocation into the endoplasmic reticulum. GRP94, another endoplasmic reticulum stress protein homologous to HSP90, also associates with unassembled immunoglobulin chains, but its interaction is biochemically, kinetically and structurally distinct from BiP's. We report here that whereas BiP preferentially binds an early disulphide intermediate of light chain and dissociates within a few minutes, GRP94 exclusively binds fully oxidized molecules and dissociates with a half-time of 50 min. These results indicate that GRP94 is itself a chaperone which acts after BiP.