Two small heat shock protein genes in Apis cerana cerana: characterization, regulation, and developmental expression

In the present study, we identified and characterized two small heat shock protein genes from Apis cerana cerana, named AccHsp24.2 and AccHsp23.0. An alignment analysis showed that AccHsp24.2 and AccHsp23.0 share high similarity with other members of the α-crystallin/sHSP family, all of which contain the conserved α-crystallin domain. The recombinant AccHsp24.2 and AccHsp23.0 proteins were shown to have molecular chaperone activity by the malate dehydrogenase thermal aggregation assay. Three heat shock elements were detected in the 5'-flanking region of AccHsp24.2 and eleven in AccHsp23.0, and two Drosophila Broad-Complex genes for ecdysone steroid response sites were found in each of the genes. The presence of these elements suggests that the expression of these genes might be regulated by heat shock and ecdysone, which was confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR). The results revealed that the expression of the two genes could be induced by cold shock (4°C) and heat shock (37°C and 43°C) in an analogous manner, and AccHsp24.2 was more susceptible than AccHsp23.0. In addition, the expression of the two genes was induced by high concentrations of ecdysone in vitro and in vivo. The accumulation of AccHsp24.2 and AccHsp23.0 mRNA was also detected in different developmental stages and tissues. In spite of the differential expression at the same stage, these genes shared similar developmental patterns, suggesting that they are regulated by similar mechanisms.