T cell recognition of stress proteins. A link between infectious and autoimmune disease

Exposure of any living cell to a change in environmental conditions such as increased growth temperature results in the induction of stress, or "heat shock", proteins. Proteins identified in such experiments have subsequently been shown to be ubiquitous components of all cells and to perform essential functions during normal cell growth in addition to their role during stress. It has recently been recognized that members of stress protein families play an important role in the immune response to a wide variety of infections, and the highly conserved nature of such proteins has led to the suggestion that they may also be immune targets in autoreactive responses. In this article we review the role of stress proteins in the immune response to infection and discuss the evidence which suggests that lymphocytes recognizing conserved determinants on such antigens may be associated with autoimmune diseases.