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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Overview and Book Plan

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description

This chapter provides an introduction to the biology and pathology of molecular chaperones, many of which are heat-shock proteins, involved in protein homeostasis and other unrelated functions. When chaperones are defective structurally and/or functionally they may cause disease. These diseases in which chaperones play an etiologic-pathogenic role are the chaperonopathies. The chapter also gives a clinical-pathological overview of chaperonopathies and guidelines for their identification and diagnosis. It briefly describes how to detect and characterize a chaperonopathy in a patient. Chaperones can be useful biomarkers for disease diagnosis and monitoring, including evaluation of prognosis and response to treatment. This and the potential of chaperones for therapy, i.e., chaperonotherapy, are aspects of chaperonology also outlined in the chapter.