Inducement of heat shock protein 70 expression by glutamine in the mice.

【Objective】 The objectives of this study were to study the effect of glutamine on both the expression of Hsp70 in the tissues of mice liver, uterus, ovary and in the early embryos, and the development of mice early embryos in vitro. 【Method】 Twenty-four healthy, 8-week-old male Kunming mice were used and randomly divided into 4 groups. GroupⅠwas used as control and was injected with 0.5 ml of saline through vena caudalis. Groups Ⅱ, Ⅲ and Ⅳ were injected with different doses of Glutamine, respectively. The mice were put to death 4 h after injection and the samples of liver, ovary and uterus tissues were taken, respectively. Heat shock protein 70 expression was detected by both RT-PCR and Western blot. The early embryos were cultured in vitro in G-CZB supplemented with different amounts of Gln. Blastocyst rates and hatched blastocyst rates were counted and the heat shock protein 70 of the embryos was detected by Western blot. 【Result】 The expression of Hsp70 in the groups of mice injected with Gln were all higher than that in the control group, and the expression of Hsp70 increased with the increased amount of Gln injected. The expression of Hsp70 in liver, uterine and ovarian tissues increased by 9.49%, 5.49% and 4.84% (P0.05), respectively, in group Ⅱ and increased by 23.56%, 21.10% and 14.30% (P0.05), respectively, in group Ⅲ as compared with that in groupⅠ. And in group Ⅳ it increased by 35.33% (P0.05), 33.94% (P0.01) and 33.77% (P0.01), respectively. The blastocyst rate and hatched blastocyst rate were significantly higher when the embryos were cultured in the G-CZB supplemented with 6 mmol·L-1 (73.21%) and 10 mmol·L-1 (76.41%) of Gln, respectively, than that (61.88%) in the control group. 【Conclusion】 The expression of Hsp70 in mice liver, uterine and ovarian tissues and in mice blastocysts can be induced by Gln, and the expression of Hsp70 increased with the increased amount of Gln. Gln can promote the development of mice early embryos cultured in vitro.