The role of Hsp90 in protein complex assembly

Hsp90 is a ubiquitous and essential molecular chaperone that plays central roles in many signaling and other cellular pathways. The in vivo and in vitro activity of Hsp90 depends on its association with a wide variety of cochaperones and cofactors, which form large multi-protein complexes involved in folding client proteins. Based on our proteomic work mapping the molecular chaperone interaction networks in yeast, especially that of Hsp90, as well as, on experiments and results presented in the published literature, one major role of Hsp90 appears to be the promotion and maintenance of proper assembly of protein complexes. To highlight this role of Hsp90, the effect of the chaperone on the assembly of the following seven complexes is discussed in this review: snoRNP, RNA polymerase II, phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase-related protein kinase (PIKK), telomere complex, kinetochore, RNA induced silencing complexes (RISC), and 26S proteasome. For some complexes, it is observed that Hsp90 mediates complex assembly by stabilizing an unstable protein subunit and facilitating its incorporation into the complex; for other complexes, Hsp90 promotes change in the composition of that complex. In all cases, Hsp90 does not appear to be part of the final assembled complex. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled:Heat Shock Protein 90 (HSP90).