Heat Shock Proteins and Human Cancers

Dear Colleagues,

As the Guest Editor of the announced Special Issue, I am pleased to invite you to submit your manuscripts dedicated to Heat Shock Proteins and Cancer.   

The relationship between heat shock proteins (HSPs) and cancer has been actively studied in recent decades and many remarkable findings have been made in this field. HSPs were shown to promote tumorigenesis, aggressive tumor growth, and tumor resistance to therapeutics; therefore, many current studies focus on the development of HSP-based modalities for theranostics of cancers.

It is now known that HSPs are required for oncogene-mediated malignization and then protect malignant cells from apoptosis, senescence, and immune attack. It is also accepted that HSPs support the viability of tumor cells under stressful conditions in the microenvironment (such as hypoxia, nutrient deficiency, acidosis, and others). Moreover, HSPs contribute to the maintenance of cancer cell stemness and the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (which are associated with tumor progression, invasion, and metastases). Excess HSPs can preserve tumor cells from the cytotoxicity of therapeutic agents, including drugs and radiation exposure. Consequently, HSPs are considered to be potential targets for treating or sensitizing human malignancies. Moreover, certain HSPs may be used in cancer-related diagnostics/prognostics or as components of anticancer vaccines.       

This Special Issue primarily aims to present some recent advances in exploring HSPs that may be significant for cancer biology and cancer treatment. We welcome both research articles and reviews covering topics such as HSP-involving mechanisms of tumorigenesis, the role of HSPs in cancer pathogenesis, approaches to inhibitory targeting tumorous HSPs, approaches to HSP-based diagnostics of cancer, HSP-based anticancer vaccines, HSPs and cancer-related exosomes, HSP-containing nanoparticles that are used to fight cancer, etc. Glucose-regulated proteins (GRPs), as members of the HSP family, will also be the cancer-related subject of this Special Issue. 

I look forward to receiving your manuscripts.

Dr. Alexander Kabakov
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cells is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• heat shock protein
• glucose-regulated protein
• cancer
• tumorigenesis
• theranostics
• anticancer vaccine