Characterizing primary transcriptional responses to short term heat shock in Down syndrome.

Abstract

Heat shock stress induces genome-wide changes in transcription regulation, activating a coordinated cellular response to enable survival. We noticed many heat shock genes are up-regulated in blood samples from individuals with trisomy 21. We characterized the immediate transcriptional response to heat shock of two lymphoblastoid cell lines derived from brothers with and without trisomy 21. The trisomy 21 cells displayed a more robust heat shock response after just one hour at 42°C than the matched disomic cells.