Heat shock and adaptive response to ischemia.

A mild heat treatment is known to confer a transient protection to cells against a subsequent lethal heat shock. This phenomenon is better known as thermotolerance and seems to be mediated by the expression of a group of proteins, the heat-shock proteins. Recent studies have shown that a heat-shock pretreatment improves postischemic recovery in an isolated perfused rat heart model. In the present brief review, we cover the more recent findings related to heat shock and the adaptive response that it may produce in the cardiac cell against ischemic stress.