Chaperome

The availability of chaperones and cochaperones for folding of cargo will be sensitive to the globalcellular pool that we now define as the chaperome, a general term to define the unique steady-state composition of chaperones and their regulators in a given cell type. It is well established that the chaperome can be altered by multiple signaling pathways to accommodate cellular stress and misfolding load.

To date data exist to describe the organ-specific distribution and function of many chaperones, but less is known about their cell-type specificity and how this changes in response to different stressors. A systems view on the entire "chaperome" would be essential to understand chaperone function under basal and stress conditions.

The nature of the epichaperome, therefore, which presents as stable, multi-partner complexes affected by strong interactions as opposed to other cellular forms of chaperomes present in dynamic complexes of weak interactions, provide opportunities for its detection through small molecules [...].

In another study, Brehme et al. have examined the chaperome in C. elegans and human. They find that chaperome expression is dramatically affected in human brain aging. At the same time, chaperome dynamics are associated with aging and neurodegenerative diseases.

Redundancy in the chaperome networks is evidenced in a number of large-scale investigations where individual chaperomes were either genetically deleted or pharmacologically inhibited.