Ferritin, a member of a family of iron storage proteins, is expressed in conditions of oxidative or thermal stress in the cell. Ferritin widely found in human tissues including the eye and brain. Increased expression under oxidative or temperature stress conditions and protective effect on cell viability suggest that apo form of ferritin (apoferritin) may have a role in the formation or maintenance of the native conformation of proteins. To test this hypothesis, we studied the influence of apoferritin on the unfolding and refolding of citrate synthase (CS) in vitro. Here we show that at stoichiometric amounts apoferritin is remarkably protecting the CS catalytic activity, stabilize the aggregation of CS under heat stress and act as chaperone-like molecules in these folding reactions in vitro. Furthermore, apoferritin promote the functional refolding of CS after guanidinium hydrochloride denaturation. Finally, these results confirm that apoferritin has chaperone-like activity in vitro and suggests that apoferritin might have a role in protection and maintaining of protein native conformation.
Keywords: apoferritin; chaperoning-like property; ferritin; molecular crowding; protection of protein catalytic activity.