Members of the 70-kilodalton heat-shock protein (HSP70) family promote protein folding both constitutively and in response to stress. These proteins have two functional units: a substrate-binding unit, and an adenosine triphosphatase unit. The substrate-binding unit of DnaK consists of a beta-sandwich domain followed by alpha-helical segments. The alpha-helical domain stabilises the complex, but does not contact the peptide directly.This superfamily represents the C-terminal alpha-helical subdomain of the substrate-binding unit from DnaK and other HSP70 proteins.