title: Roles of heat-shock proteins in innate and adaptive immunity.
abstract: Heat-shock proteins (HSPs) are the most abundant and ubiquitous soluble intracellular proteins. In single-cell organisms, invertebrates and vertebrates, they perform a multitude of housekeeping functions that are essential for cellular survival. In higher vertebrates, their ability to interact with a wide range of proteins and peptides--a property that is shared by major histocompatibility complex molecules--has made the HSPs uniquely suited to an important role in organismal survival by their participation in innate and adaptive immune responses. The immunological properties of HSPs enable them to be used in new immunotherapies of cancers and infections.
authors.affiliation: Center for Immunotherapy of Cancer and Infectious Diseases, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, Connecticut 06030-1601, USA. srivastava@nso2.uchc.edu
authors.forename: Pramod
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Srivastava
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017951:Antigen Presentation; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000502:physiology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D007167:Immunotherapy; D007239:Infections / Q000628:therapy; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy; D013602:T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / Q000276:immunology; D014611:Vaccination
chemical_list: D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins