COMPARISON OF ANTI-HEAT SHOCK PROTEIN-70 (ANTI-HSP70) AND ANTI-68-KDAINNER-EAR PROTEIN IN THE SERA OF PATIENTS WITH MENIERES-DISEASE

The 68-kDa antigen detected in the sera of patients with autoimmune in ner ear disease is known to represent the highly inducible heat shock protein 70 (hsp70). To evaluate the existence of anti-hsp70 in the ser a of patients with Meniere's disease and to develop a more reliable me thod to detect this antibody, the sera of patients and controls were e xamined. Bovine kidney (MDBK) cells were cultured and some of them wer e heat shocked. Proteins in the cells were separated using sodium dode cyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Sera were reacted simu ltaneously with the blots of non-heat-shocked cells and heat-shocked c ells. The serum was considered positive if the band in the 70-kDa loca tion was denser in the lane with heat-shocked cells relative to non-he at-shocked cells. Presence of the antibody against the 68-kDa protein was compared with the result of immunoblotting with MDBK cells. In imm unoblotting with MDBK. cells, 33.3% of patients with Meniere's disease had anti-hsp70, while in the control group, only 5% had this antibody . Of the 60 cases, 13 were positive against both hsp70 and the 68-kDa protein, whereas 7 were positive only against hsp70 and 6 only against the 68-kDa protein. These differences appeared to result from the gre ater sensitivity of the differential anti-hsp assay and from difficult ies in interpreting the results in blots with bovine inner ear extract s because of faint, broad, or overlapping multiple bands. Quite a numb er of patients with Meniere's disease have anti-hsp70, and it may be i ndicative of an immune etiology of the disease. The Western blot using heat-shocked and non-heat-shocked cells could be a reliable method to detect this antibody.