Prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms respond to heat shock or other
environmental stress by inducing the synthesis of proteins collectively known
as heat-shock proteins (hsp) PUBMED:2853609. Amongst them is a family of proteins with an
average molecular weight of 20 Kd, known as the hsp20 proteins PUBMED:7925426.
These
seem to act as chaperones that can protect other proteins against
heat-induced
denaturation and aggregation. Hsp20 proteins seem to form large
heterooligomeric aggregates. Structurally, this family is characterized
by the presence of a conserved C-terminal domain of about 100 residues.
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