The heat shock response in human phagocytes.

During the last 10 years the intriguing field of the heat-shock response and stress proteins has switched from a particular case to a phenomenon of general interest. Discovered in Drosophila, these proteins were observed in every living organism with a surprisingly high sequence homology. In addition, these proteins are not only inducible by stress or pathophysiological situations but are also expressed in unstressed cells. These are arguments for crucial roles of heat-shock proteins. Here we discuss some aspects of the heat shock/stress response that we observed in phagocytic cells after phagocytosis with regard to their physiologic functions such as oxygen-free radical generation, antigen processing and presentation.