The mechanism of small heat shock protein/alphaB-crystallin gene expression by proteasome inhibition was investigated. Expression of alphaB-crystallin was induced efficiently only by proteasome inhibition and not by heat shock while expression of HSP27 was induced efficiently by both proteasome inhibition and heat shock. The promoter of the alphaB-crystallin gene contains two conserved heat shock elements, one located between -397 and -374 and the other between -57 and -37, relative to the transcription start site. Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) revealed that proteasome inhibition induces binding of heat shock factors to both heat shock elements in the alphaB-crystallin gene promoter. However, a transient transfection assay using deletion constructs of the alphaB-crystallin gene promoter showed that the region between -373 and -58 plays an important role in promoter activity. These results indicate the presence of differential response mechanisms of alphaB-crystallin gene expression to proteasome inhibition and heat shock, and that the activation of heat shock elements is not sufficient for the efficient induction of the alphaB-crystallin gene by proteasome inhibition. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.