A role for anti-HSP60 antibodies in arthritis: a critical review

As a result of the high sequence similarity between HSP60 proteins, found in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, it has been suggested, but never concluded, that anti-HSP60 antibodies could be of importance in the pathology of arthritis diseases explained by a concept named molecular mimicry. In a number of clinical studies antibodies to both human and bacterial HSP60 have been detected in serum from patients with different inflammatory diseases, but divergent results have been published. Recent progress, however, has increased the specificity in tests used to determine the humoral response to HSP60. In this review, these new findings are compared with old questioning the durability of molecular mimicry as a hypothesis for arthritis pathogenesis.