Hold Me Tight

review, we discuss the role of heat shock proteins (HSPs) in common cardiac diseases, including cardiac hypertrophy, heart failure, and ischemia/reperfusion injury. Furthermore, we delineate the many specific mechanisms by which these chaperones, cochaperones, and heat shock factor (HSF) transcription factors have been found to be cardioprotective in experimental models. Lastly, we review recent studies involving drugs that are being developed (and currently used) to increase the expression (and presumably function) of chaperone/cochaperone systems that may be applicable to the treatment of common cardiac diseases and familial cardiac diseases with a pathogenesis that includes a major component of misfolded proteins (eg, desminopathies).