Lack of Elevation of Stress-Inducible Heat-Shock Protein 70 in the Ferret Lung After Chronic Cigarette Smoke Inhalation

Abstract

Few investigations have examined in vivo expression of lung heat-shock proteins (HSPs) following environmental stress. This study was performed to ascertain if stress-inducible HSP 70 in the ferret lung is elevated following inhalant exposure to 2 high concentrations of a mixture of mainstream and sidestream cigarette smoke: (a) 381 ± 97 (SD) mg/m³ and (b) 38.2 ± 13.3 (SD) mg/m³. Ferrets (n = 5 for each concentration) starting at 5 wk of age were exposed head-only to cigarette smoke for 2 h/day, 5 days/wk for a total of 15 wk; control ferrets (n = 4) were exposed to filtered air. Samples of the peripheral lung from the right apical lobe were obtained for analysis by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), protein immunoblotting, and subsequent chemiluminescent detection. Results revealed that stress-inducible HSP 70 is present constitutively in the control ferret lung and is not elevated significantly (p = .7758) in lungs from both groups of smoke-exposed ferrets.