Immediate early response of the marine sponge Suberites domuncula to heat stress: Reduction of trehalose and glutathione concentrations and glutathione S-transferase activity

The marine sponge Suberites domuncula was used to identify early markers for thermal stress. Cubes from sponges have been kept for 30 min at 31°C (10 °C higher than the ambient temperature). After this treatment the sponge cubes were kept again at 21°C. To demonstrate that the animals reacted to the elevated temperature, the expression of heat shock protein (HSP) was determined. Using an antibody raised against HSP70, it was found by Western blotting that the animals specifically express a 45 kDa polypeptide after heat treatment. It was shown that even after 10 min of heat treatment the steady-state concentration of trehalose drops by 40% from a base level of 13 nmol/mg protein. The activit…