You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 61, Issue 5
  • T cell response to human HSP60 and yersinia 19 kDa in ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis: no evidence for a causal role of these antigens in the pathogenesis

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Letter
T cell response to human HSP60 and yersinia 19 kDa in ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis: no evidence for a causal role of these antigens in the pathogenesis
  1. J Zou1,
  2. M Rudwaleit1,
  3. A Thiel2,
  4. R Lauster2,
  5. J Braun1,3,
  6. J Sieper1,2
  1. 1Department of Rheumatology, Klinikum Benjamin Franklin, Free University, Berlin, Germany
  2. 2German Rheumatology Research Centre, Berlin, Germany
  3. 3Rheumzentrum Herne, Germany
  1. Correspondence to:
    Professor J Sieper, Medical Department I, Rheumatology, University Hospital Benjamin Franklin, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12200 Berlin, Germany;
    hjsieper{at}zedat.fu-berlin.de

https://doi.org/10.1136/ard.61.5.473

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    The pathogenesis of two important inflammatory rheumatic diseases, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS), is not clear. In both diseases an immune response against an unknown autoantigen may have a crucial role.1,2 It has been repeatedly suggested that heat shock proteins (HSP) play a part in various autoimmune diseases such as RA, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis,3 based on high interspecies sequence homologies, inducible tissue expression, and a strong immunogenicity. On the other hand, some studies indicate that HSP may even be protective in arthritis.4

    The 19 kDa urease β subunit of yersinia is regarded as a major immunodominant protein for both T cell and antibody responses in patients with yersinia induced reactive arthritis.5 Because 20–30% of HLA-B27+ patients with yersinia induced reactive arthritis develop the full picture of AS after 10–20 years,6 it is an obvious question to ask whether a T cell response against the yersinia-specific 19 kDa protein is also detectable in patients with AS. …

    View Full Text