Physical Exercise and Heat Shock Proteins

Molecular chaperones consist of several highly conserved families of proteins, many of which consist of heat shock proteins. Heat shock proteins (HSP) are a group of cytoprotective proteins critical in the maintenance of protein and cellular homeostasis and protect the cell against further insults. HSP also can actively release to circulation and function as chaperokine. It has become suggested that they induced or activated with acute exercise or after chronic exercise training. It seems that a combination of thermal, oxidative and metabolic stress and muscle damage involved in exercise-induced HSP. These chaperones can play important role in biological response and adaptation by exercise. It is well known that the levels of certain molecular chaperones are elevated during stress to provide protection to the cell. For example stress response get disturbed in some conditions such as, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s, furthermore in conditions that may stimulated disease such as aging. In the present chapter we discussed the role of exercise on these classes of chaperones in biology of exercise and human diseases. Exercise training, by improving the level of HSP, can help to amplify the stress response. These observations provided an opportunity to exploit protective role of HSP health and physical performance. Therefore, identifying the biological effects of these chaperons in exercise can lead to a greater understanding of the mechanisms of exercise in medicine and exercise adaptation biology.