Medical Hydrology and Balneology: Environmental Aspects

Heat-shock protein 70 is affected by thermal
treatment
Scapagnni G (1) , Davinelli S (1) , Sapere N (1) , Zella D (2) , Fortunati N (3)
(1) Department of Health Sciences. Faculty of Medicine and Surgery.
University of Molise. Italy
(2) Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Institute of Human Virology-School
of Medicine. University of Maryland. Baltimore. USA
(3) Grotta Giusti Spa. Monsummano terme. Italy
g.scapagnini@gmail.com
Introduction and Objectives
Hormesis is defined as a biphasic dose-response and it may be graphically represented
by either an inverted U-shaped dose response or by a J- or U-shaped dose
response. Hormesis-stimulating factors initiate an adaptive stress response that
renders cells/organisms resistant against high doses of the same agent. Therefore,
also the exposure to a mild stressor confers resistance to subsequent conditions of
increased stress. Moreover, even though not all mechanisms of hormesis are understood
an emerging concept is that the effectiveness of an adaptive (hormetic) response
elicits general protective and reparative mechanisms. After heat shock or
other metabolic stress, heat-shock proteins (HSPs) are expressed at high levels in all
tissues and cells. Abundant evidence shows that these proteins have pro-survival
functions that include chaperone, anti-apoptotic and/or anti-inflammatory activity.
Noteworthy, HSPs are known as important endogenous cell-protective proteins
induced in response to a wide variety of stresses. Taking into account that the
correlation between thermal treatment and HSP-70 has not been demonstrated, this
study clarified the potential effects of this treatment on HSP-70 levels. In addition
to explore whether different thermal treatments such as thermal steam bath in the
natural grotta and thermal mud induce changes in individual levels of HSP-70, we
have considered and investigated several parameters including C-reactive protein
(CRP), adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), fibrinogen, insuline-like growth
factor-1 (IGF-1). Specifically, we assessed the relationship between these parameters
and the changes observed for HSP-70.
Materials and Methods
20 healthy subjects over 45 years of age were enrolled into the study. Blood
samples were collected after two hours from the first treatments session and after
one week of treatments repeated one time a day. Study parameters including CRP,
ACTH, IGF-1, fibrinogen, growth hormone (GH) were determined with methods
routinely used in clinical laboratories. A quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR)
Balnea
2012, núm. 6, 192-193
192
ISBN: 978-84-669-1887-0
978-84-669-3482-4