CONFIRMATION OF CROSS-REACTIVITY BETWEEN LYME ANTIBODY H9724 AND HUMAN HEAT-SHOCK-PROTEIN-60 BY A COMBINATORIAL APPROACH

A library of Ac-XXXXXPAPRM decapeptides was prepared on a TentaGel sol id support using the approach of split synthesis and the strategy of p artial chain termination. Epitope screening of the library (17(5) simi lar to 1.4 x 10(6) decapeptides) with a Lyme monoclonal antibody (H972 4) and subsequent MALDI-MS analysis of candidate peptides from colored beads revealed a consensus structure of X-i-DLSXj (X-i = V, L, Y; X-j = G, R), These identified sequences presented no homology to the natu ral epitope from Borrelia burgdorferi flagellin. However, they were fo und to resemble a fragment at the N-terminus of human heat shock prote in (Hsp60). Our results confirmed that H9724 cross-reacts between bact erial and human proteins and provided support for an autoimmunity mech anism of Lyme disease.