Analysis of HSP in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

The involvement of heat shock protein (hsp) in the pathogenesis of RA has been implied, however, the precise mechanism is still unknown. We analyzed the individual data of antibody level to r-hsp 65 in comparison with the level to the crude mycobacterium extract (MT-WE) . The high antibody level to hsp65 with low level to MT-WE has been specifically observed in RA.However, the sera included antibody to r-hsp 65 did not react with human hsp obtained from heat shocked human cells.This suggest that the antibody may direct to nonconserved region of mycobacterial hsp65. On the contrary, much more human hsp72/73 was expres-sed on unstimulated rheumatoid synovial tissue cells than peripheral blood mononuclear cells. These findings imply the importance of hsp in the pathogenesis of RA, though the mechanism may be more complicated than expected.