Establishment of mouse cell lines expressing Mycobacterium leprae 65 KDa heat shock protein gene.

Neurotropism is one of the most important characteristics of Mycobacterium leprae (M. leprae). It is believed that nerve damage of leprosy is caused by various immune mechanisms 1), and so called "autoimmune reaction" is suspected to have one of the role in nerve damage. M. leprae 65 kDa heat shock protein (hsp 65) has noticeable characteristics. Hsp 65 is a highly conserved protein2). It belongs to the family of groEL proteins3). The amino acid sequence of M. leprae hsp 65 shows homology of more than 90% with other mycobacterial hsp 65s and shares around 48% amino acid identity with the mammalian mitochondrial P1 or hsp 604). Hsp 65 was also reported to be a highly immunogenic protein of M. leprae in both Bcell and T-cell responses5,6) . Recently, many reports have described the relationships between hsp 65 and some autoimmune diseases such as Kawasaki disease7), rheumatoid