Transcriptional regulation of heat shock genes. A paradigm for inducible genomic responses.

The heat shock response offers an ideal paradigm to understand how the cell recognizes and responds to acute and chronic exposures to environmental and physiological stress. Of the numerous inducible genomic responses, the heat shock response has contributed fascinating insights into the molecular and cellular mechanisms of adaptation, ranging from the regulation of heat shock gene expression to the function of stress proteins. The recent cloning of multiple heat shock transcription factor (HSF) genes in higher eukaryotes and studies on the biochemical and cellular properties of HSFs have revealed several novel features of the transcriptional response.