Heat Shock Proteins and the Cardiovascular System

The first observations on heat shock proteins and the heart were made in the 1980s, and interest in these proteins has increased over the 1990s. In the late-1990s there has been a growth in the number of papers published on heat shock proteins and the heart. Heat shock proteins have been implicated in a number of cardiovascular research areas including ischemia, hypertrophy, ageing, and atherosclerosis, and this list is growing. The purpose of this work is to give an overview of current understanding of the heat shock proteins in the cardiovascular system, and to summarize the approaches to the study of heat shock proteins in the heart. It assembles results from a number of different cardiovascular fields, and provides a comprehensive review of heat shock proteins in the cardiovascular system.