Comparative analysis of hsp16 and hsp70 heat shock protein families in Caenorhabditis nematodes

ABSTRACT The heat shock response (HSR), driven by molecular chaperons, is a key defense mechanism against proteotoxic stress. In nematodes, the hsp16 family and hsp70 family play central roles in the HSR, but their evolutionary conservation and expression patterns remain poorly understood. Here, we performed phylogenetic, genomic, and transcriptomic analyses of hsp16 and hsp70 genes in Caenorhabditis elegans and C. briggsae , and other related …