In Situ Thermal Denaturation of Proteins in Dunning AT-1 Prostate Cancer Cells: Implication for Hyperthermic Cell Injury

The in situ thermal protein denaturation and its correlation with direct hyperthermic cell injury in Dunning AT-1 prostate tumor cells were investigated in this study. The in situ thermal protein denaturation was studied using both Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The FTIR spectra at different temperatures show changes in protein secondary structure (from alpha helix to extended beta sheet) during in situ thermal protein denaturation within AT-1 cells. Calorimetric studies using DSC show that endothermic heat release is associated with the in situ thermal protein denaturation. Furthermore, both the secondary structure changes detected by FTIR and the calorimetric changes detected by DSC were quantified and the kinetics of the overall in situ thermal protein denaturation was derived under different heating conditions. The onset temperature where the overall in situ thermal protein denaturation is first detectable was found to be scanning rate dependent (approximately 41 degrees C at 2 degrees C min(-1) and approximately 44 degrees C at 5 degrees C min(-1)). The kinetics of the overall in situ thermal protein denaturation was derived from both DSC and FTIR measurements and was fit using kinetic and statistical models. The kinetic data determined by FTIR and DSC under the same heating conditions match well with each other. The activation energy of the overall in situ thermal protein denaturation is found to be strongly dependent on the temperature range considered (the activation energy ranges from approximately 110 kJ mol(-1) between 44 and 90 degrees C to approximately 750 kJ mol(-1) between 44 and 50 degrees C). However, its dependence on heating rate is negligible. Several denaturation peaks, including a dominant one between approximately 62 and 65 degrees C, are identifiable from both the DSC and the FTIR results. To investigate directly the relationship between thermally induced cell injury and the in situ thermal protein denaturation, both acute (propidium iodide dye exclusion, assessed 3-h postthermal treatment) and chronic (clonogenics, assessed 7-day postthermal treatment) cell injury were quantified using AT-1 cells prepared under the same conditions as for the DSC protein studies. Comparisons of the results from the cell injury studies and the DSC protein denaturation studies show that the overall in situ thermal protein denaturation correlates well with both the acute and the chronic cell injury, which suggests that overall in situ thermal protein denaturation is an important mechanism of direct hyperthermic cell injury in AT-1 cells at the macromolecular level.