Edited by: Karen Young Kreeger
M.S. Marber, R. Mestril, S.-H. Chi, M.R. Sayen, D.M. Yellen, W.H. Dillman, "Overexpression of the rat inducible 70-kD heat stress protein in a transgenic mouse increases the resistance of the heart to ischemic injury," Journal of Clinical Investigation, 95:1446-56, 1995. (Cited in nearly 50 publications as of December 1996) Comments by Wolfgang H. Dillman, University of California, San Diego


CARDIAC PROTECTION: UC-San Diego’s Wolfgang Dillman, right, and coauthor Ruben Mestril speculated that flooding heart cells with heat shock proteins might protect them from mycardial infarcts.
Heat shock proteins play both a protective and a restorative role in the human body. These molecules are expressed when cells are stressed by heat, a lack of blood flow, or an influx of heavy metals, among other circumstances. Because of these outside shocks, some cellular proteins denature. Heat shock proteins bind to the denatured proteins, preventing...

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