[Molecular cell biology of the heat stress response. II]

The coordinate induction of distinct genes by heat stress and a considerable number of chemical stressors depend on a common regulatory element in the promoter found in front of related genes of all eukaryotic systems. This element can be used for the construction of universal heat stress expression cassettes. The increasingly broad interest in the heat stress response and the genes involved also results from medical aspects, e.g., the potential application of hyperthermia in cancer therapy, the intricate connections of stress proteins and genes with malignant transformation, and the remarkable role of heat stress proteins as dominant antigens of infectious and autoimmune diseases.