Hsp90 as a capacitor of phenotypic variation

Christine Queitsch, Todd A. Sangster and Susan Lindquist ()
Additional contact information
Christine Queitsch: University of Chicago
Todd A. Sangster: University of Chicago
Susan Lindquist: University of Chicago

Nature, 2002, vol. 417, issue 6889, 618-624

Abstract: Abstract Heat-shock protein 90 (Hsp90) chaperones the maturation of many regulatory proteins and, in the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, buffers genetic variation in morphogenetic pathways. Levels and patterns of genetic variation differ greatly between obligatorily outbreeding species such as fruitflies and self-fertilizing species such as the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Also, plant development is more plastic, being coupled to environmental cues. Here we report that, in Arabidopsis accessions and recombinant inbred lines, reducing Hsp90 function produces an array of morphological phenotypes, which are dependent on underlying genetic variation. The strength and breadth of Hsp90's effects on the buffering and release of genetic variation suggests it may have an impact on evolutionary processes. We also show that Hsp90 influences morphogenetic responses to environmental cues and buffers normal development from destabilizing effects of stochastic processes. Manipulating Hsp90's buffering capacity offers a tool for harnessing cryptic genetic variation and for elucidating the interplay between genotypes, environments and stochastic events in the determination of phenotype.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature749 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:417:y:2002:i:6889:d:10.1038_nature749

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature749

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().