DEVELOPMENT
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DEVELOPMENT AND DISEASE RESEARCH ARTICLE INTRODUCTIONProtein aggregation and the formation of intracellular protein inclusion bodies are associated with many degenerative disorders, including Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, and with cirrhosis of the liver (Carrell, 2005). In many cases, the role of protein aggregates in disease pathogenesis is unclear. Efforts to understand aggregation disorders have focused mainly on mutations within the disease-associated protein. However, mounting evidence suggests that a major cause of protein inclusion body formation is failure of the protein quality-control system (McClellan et al., 2005). This surveillance mechanism recruits both molecular chaperones and proteases to safeguard against protein aggregation by maintaining the equilibrium between protein folding and degradation (Hohfeld et al., 2001). A malfunction in the ubiquitin-proteasome degradation pathway is hypothesized to be one cause of Mallory body formation in the hepatocytes of patients with chronic liver disorders (Bardag-Gorce et al., 2003;Bardag-Gorce et al., 2004;Denk et al., 2000). Mallory bodies are inclusions composed of the keratin intermediate filaments keratin 8 (K8; also known as Krt8) and keratin 18 (K18; also known as Krt18), as well as ubiquitin, the proteasome complex and molecular chaperones, including heat shock protein 70 (HSP70; HSPA1B) and heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) (Coulombe and Omary, 2002). Cells that have been treated with a chemical inhibitor of proteasome function (Bardag-Gorce et al., 2004) or that contain the UBB +1 ubiquitin mutation (Bardag-Gorce et al., 2003) form Mallory bodies due to an accumulation of non-degraded keratin.Misfolded proteins also tend to aggregate. Proper protein folding within a cell often does not occur spontaneously and, thus, molecular chaperones are required for some proteins to reach its native state efficiently (Hartl and Hayer-Hartl, 2002). Hsp70 is a ubiquitous chaperone that, together with diverse co-chaperone binding partners, facilitates protein folding and the presentation of proteins to the proteasome for degradation (Esser et al., 2004). Co-chaperones of the DnaJ (Hsp40) protein family are characterized by a conserved Jdomain that regulates substrate binding and release by activating the ATPase activity of Hsp70 (Fan et al., 2003). These co-chaperones differ in their tissue and subcellular patterns of expression, and convey substrate specificity to Hsp70 (Fan et al., 2003). However, little is known about the precise substrates that are regulated in this manner.The Mrj (Mammalian relative of DnaJ; also known as Dnajb6 -Mouse Genome Informatics) gene encodes a co-chaperone that is widely expressed throughout the adult mouse and during development of the embryo and placenta (Chuang et al., 2002;Dai et al., 2005;Hunter et al., 1999;Izawa et al., 2000;Seki et al., 1999). Mrj -/-embryos die at mid-gestation due to a failure of chorioallantoic attachment during placental development (Hunter et al., 1999). Recently, a few diverse ...