Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: An Updated Overview on the Heat Shock Protein Involvement

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) represent chronic idiopathic disorders, including Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), in which one of the trigger factors is represented by aberrant immune interactions between the intestinal epithelium and the intestinal microbiota. The involvement of heat shock proteins (HSPs) as etiological and pathogenetic factors is becoming of increasing interest. HSPs were found to be differentially expressed in the intestinal tissues and sera of patients with CD and UC. It has been shown that HSPs can play a dual role in the disease, depending on the stage of progression. They can support the inflammatory and fibrosis process, but they can also act as protective factors during disease progression or before the onset of one of the worst complications of IBD, colorectal cancer. Furthermore, HSPs are able to mediate the interaction between the intestinal microbiota and intestinal epithelial cells. In this work, we discuss the involvement of HSPs in IBD considering their genetic, epigenetic, immune and molecular roles, referring to the most recent works present in the literature. With our review, we want to shed light on the importance of further exploring the role of HSPs, or even better, the role of the molecular chaperone system (CS), in IBD: various molecules of the CS including HSPs may have diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic potential, promoting the creation of new drugs that could overcome the side-effects of the therapies currently used.

Special Issue: “Inflammatory Signaling Pathways Involved in Gastrointestinal Diseases”

“…Given the key role that is exerted by inflammation in the pathogenesis of IBD, the identification of new markers that are related to it represents a crucial aim in IBD research. In this scenario, the study by Scalia et al [12] suggests a correlation between heat shock proteins (HSPs) and IBDs. HSPs are proteins that are expressed by the cells in stress conditions, whose genetic or acquired dysregulation has been connected to several pathological conditions called chaperonopathies [13,14].…”