Zhang Shujie, Wang Yujie, Nie Lujing, Feng Wenjiu, Zhang Mengyuan, Chen Yanbo
The First Affiliated Hospital of Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, China.
Changle County People's Hospital, Weifang, China.
Front Physiol. 2025 Jul 25;16:1644898. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1644898. eCollection 2025.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common age-related arrhythmia in clinic, affecting millions of people around the world, and is closely related to heart failure, ischemic stroke and other diseases. In addition, AF is progressive in nature and represents a significant global health burden. However, the current treatment plans are mainly symptomatic, the efficacy in preventing atrial fibrillation is limited. Hence, there is a pressing need for etiology-specific AF treatments. It is widely acknowledged that the atrial electrical and structural remodeling constitutes the pathological basis of atrial fibrillation. Evidence indicates that heat shock proteins (HSPs) could have a protective effect against AF. HSPs are a diverse family of molecular chaperones that safeguard cells against various stressors. They play a crucial role in mitigating oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis, thereby helping to prevent structural and electrical remodeling in cardiomyocytes. Moreover, HSPs safeguard proteostasis via prevention of toxic protein aggregation by binding to (partially) unfolded proteins. As pivotal inhibitors of AF onset and progression, HSPs represent both a promising therapeutic target and potential biomarkers for staging AF and predicting post-treatment recurrence, as evidenced by recent studies. In this review, we explore the mechanisms of HSP in AF to pave the way for the development of targeted therapies for this prevalent arrhythmia disease.
心房颤动（AF）是临床上最常见的与年龄相关的心律失常，影响着全球数百万人，并且与心力衰竭、缺血性中风等疾病密切相关。此外，AF本质上具有进展性，是一项重大的全球健康负担。然而，目前的治疗方案主要是对症治疗，预防心房颤动的疗效有限。因此，迫切需要针对病因的AF治疗方法。人们普遍认为，心房电重构和结构重构构成了心房颤动的病理基础。有证据表明，热休克蛋白（HSPs）可能对AF具有保护作用。HSPs是一类多样的分子伴侣家族，可保护细胞免受各种应激源的影响。它们在减轻氧化应激、炎症和细胞凋亡方面发挥着关键作用，从而有助于防止心肌细胞的结构和电重构。此外，HSPs通过与（部分）未折叠蛋白结合来防止有毒蛋白质聚集，从而维护蛋白质稳态。作为AF发生和进展的关键抑制剂，HSPs既是一个有前景的治疗靶点，也是用于AF分期和预测治疗后复发的潜在生物标志物，最近的研究证明了这一点。在本综述中，我们探讨了HSP在AF中的作用机制，为开发针对这种常见心律失常疾病的靶向治疗方法铺平道路。
