Gaining new insights on the Hsp90 regulatory network

The heat shock protein Hsp90 is a molecular chaperon that uses ATP and interacts with various co-chaperone proteins, acting as adapters, in order to carry out the maturation of its target proteins. In physiological conditions, the heat shock proteins (HSPs) favour post-translational modification, protein folding and sub-cellular transport of their "client" proteins. In stress conditions, many misfolded proteins accumulate exposing their hydrophobic residues and these are recognized by HSPs which prevent the aggregation and favour the correct folding. In case this is no longer possible, HSPs mediate elimination of such misfolded proteins, mainly by ubiquitin–proteasome system.