Okadaic acid markedly potentiates the heat-induced hsp 70 promoter activity

The effects of okadaic acid (OA), a potent and specific inhibitor of serine/threonine phosphatases 2A and 1, on the transient expression of a human hsp 70 promoter-linked chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene transfected into N-18 mouse neuroblastoma cells were determined. Assays of reporter gene activity showed that nanomolar concentrations of OA markedly potentiated the heat-induced (but not the basal) expression of pHBCAT, a full-length hsp 70 promoter-driven chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene construct. This effect of OA was dose-dependent and promoter-specific and appeared to be attributable to inhibition of protein phosphatase 2A as opposed to protein phosphatase 1. The ability of OA to potentiate the heat-induced expression of pHBCAT appeared to be a feature common to several different cell types examined. We propose that the heat-induced transcriptional activation of heat shock genes is associated with the phosphorylation of component(s) of the transcription complex and that OA enhances this phosphorylation, thereby potentiating the heat-induced hsp 70 promoter activity.