prohibitins in human diseases: diagnostic and therapeutic applications

prohibitins are chaperone proteins highly conserved among eukaryotes. many different functions have been attributed to prohibitins depending on their tissue expression and sub-cellular localization. prohibitins play a major role in mitochondrial physiology, regulating the stability and the processing of both respiratory chain complex subunits and opa1, a mitochondrial fusion regulating protein. prohibitins are also involved in the control of proliferation, apoptosis, transcription and signal transduction by interacting with important regulators of these processes located either in mitochondria or in other subcellular sites, such as nucleus, cytosol, plasma membrane. here, i will review recent experimental data linking the impairment of the different functions of prohibitins with the onset of important human pathologies, such as cancer, chronic inflammation and drug-induced toxicity. these data highlight how prohibitins could represent promising candidate targets for the development of novel therapeutic approaches.