Discovery
It is known that rapid heat hardening can be elicited by a brief exposure of cells to sub-lethal high temperature, which in turn provides protection from subsequent and more severe temperature. In 1962, Ritossa reported that heat and the metabolic uncoupler dinitrophenol induced a characteristic pattern of puffing in the chromosomes of Drosophila. This discovery eventually led to the identification of the heat-shock proteins (HSP) or stress proteins whose expression these puffs represented. Increased synthesis of selected proteins in Drosophila cells following stresses such as heat shock was first reported in 1974.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, investigators recognized that many HSPs function as molecular chaperones and thus play a critical role in protein folding, intracellular trafficking of proteins, and coping with proteins denatured by heat and other stresses. Therefore, the study of stress proteins has undergone explosive growth.
Read more about this topic: Heat Shock Protein
Famous quotes containing the word discovery:
“That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“The discovery of Pennsylvania’s coal and iron was the deathblow to Allaire. The works were moved to Pennsylvania so hurriedly that for years pianos and the larger pieces of furniture stood in the deserted houses.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)