Ischemia-reperfusion injury in the kidney is known to cause induction of the inducible form of the 70 kDa heat shock protein HSP70i (or HSP72). However, knowledge of the expressional regulation of the two coding genes for HSP70i - HSP70-1 gene and HSP70-2 gene - is very limited. We investigated the time course of HSP70-1 and -2 mRNA expression and its relation to cellular ATP levels in the renal cortex after different periods of unilateral warm renal ischemia (10-60 min) and reperfusion (up to 60 min) in 10-week-old male Wistar rats. Immediately after ischemia there was a significant induction of both HSP70i genes. While HSP70-1 expression constantly increased (up to 4-fold) during reperfusion, even to a higher extent with prolongation of ischemia, HSP70-2 mRNA - which was generally expressed at a far lower level than HSP70-1 mRNA - was strongly induced (3-fold) during reperfusion only after brief periods (10 min) of ischemia. Cellular ATP levels rapidly dropped to 5% with ischemia and the pattern of recovery during reperfusion significantly depended on the duration of the ischemic period, thus showing a good relation with the heat shock (protein) gene expression. We conclude that HSP70-2 is the more sensitive gene with a lower activation threshold by mild injury, while the HSP70-1 gene mediates the major response of heat shock protein induction after severe injury.