Dr. Lee Weber, Professor
Molecular Biology; structure and expression of human stress protein genes, function of the heat shock proteins in stress resistance

Montclair State College, Montclair, NJ
1968, B.A. Biology
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
1970, M.S. Genetics
1975, Ph.D. Cell Biology
State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY
1974 - 1977, Postdoctoral Training

Current Projects / Research
Cells of all known organisms respond to physiological stress by increased synthesis of heat shock or stress proteins. Accumulation of stress proteins induced by exposure to mild stress results in a transient state of stress resistance. The goal of our laboratory is to understand how heat shock proteins function in normal cell physiology and in the development of cellular stress resistance. Our approach has been to construct cell lines that over express individual heat shock protein genes. Most of our work has focused on the low molecular weight heat shock protein, hsp27. Stable transfected rodent cells that over express human hsp27 in the absence of other stress proteins exhibit enhanced stress resistance. Recent evidence suggests that phosphorylation of hsp27 mediates heat resistance by stabilizing cytoplasmic F-actin filaments. Directed mutagenesis is now being used to define the role of the stress protein in this process.

We have recently become interested in using stress protein gene expression as a biomarker for environmental stress. We have cloned several salmon heat shock protein cDNAs, expressed the recombinant proteins, and prepared specific antibodies. These reagents are being used to monitor stress levels in Lahonton Cutthroat trout and in Chinook salmon exposed to thermal pollution.

Recent Publications
Lavoie, J.N., E. Hickey, L.A. Weber and J.L. Landry. 1993. Involvement of heat shock protein 27 in microfilament dynamics and growth factor signal transduction. J. Biol. Chem. 268:24210.

Lavoie, J.N., H. Lambert, E. Hickey, L.A. Weber and J. Landry. 1995. Regulation of cellular thermoresistance and actin polymerization activity by phosphorylation-induced changes in the oligomeric structure of heat shock protein 27. Mol. Cell Biol. 15:505.

Piotrowicz, R.S., L.A. Weber, E. Hickey and E.G. Levin. 1995. Accelerated growth and senescence of arterial endothelial cells expressing the small molecular weight heat shock protein, hsp27. FASEB J. 9:1079.

Larsen, J. K., W.T. Gerthoffer, E. Hickey and L.A. Weber. 1995. Cloning and sequencing of a cDNA encoding the canine HSP27 protein. Gene 161:305.

Richards, E.H., Hickey, E., Weber, L.A., and Masters, J.R.W., The effect of overexpression of the small heat shock protein, HSP27, on the heat and drug sensitivities of human testis tumor cells. Cancer Research 56:2446-2451 (1996) .

Oesterreich, S., Fuqua, S., Weber, L.A., and Hickey, E., Basal regulatory promoter elements of the HSP27 gene in human breast cancer cells. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. 222:155-163 (1996)

University of Nevada, Reno
Biology Department m/s 314
Reno, NV 89557

email to Dr. Lee Weber

Office phone
775-784-6188
FAX number
775-784-1302