[
Physiol Genomics,
2003]
Life developed in a stressful environment. Stressors at the cellular level include heat, hypoxia, oxidative or reductive substances, mechanical or osmotic pressure, and toxic compounds like heavy metals. Various molecular pathways, more or less specific for the different stressors, developed during evolution to combat the molecular consequences of cell stress. Thermal stress induces the induction of a highly conserved protein family, the heat shock proteins (HSP).