title: The possible role of HSPs on Behçet's disease: a bioinformatic approach.
abstract: Current evidence lends increasing support to immunoinflammatory mechanisms as one of the prime pathogenic processes involved in the development and progression of Behçet's disease (BD). It has been observed that most human beings have cellular and humoral reactions against microbial heat shock proteins (HSPs). The observation that eukaryotic and prokaryotic HSPs have high sequence similarity promoted the hypothesis that HSPs might be potential candidates for molecular mimicry and could act as potentially dangerous autoantigens. In this study, using bioinformatics tools, we examined the hypothesis that HSPs (evolutionarily conserved proteins), which are present in pathogenic and commensal organisms and their hosts, provide the stimulus that initiates BD in susceptible individuals. In this regards, the nucleotide and amino acid sequences of the human HSP 60 kDa and bacterial HSP 60 kDa deposited in the NCBI and PDB databases were subjected to analysis using bioinformatics tools, including The CLC Sequence Viewer and MEGA softwares. These data showed that the sequence homology between bacterial and self HSPs (leading to cross-reactivity and molecular mimicry phenomenon) may be associated with the development of the disease; and suggesting that microbial HSPs, which cross-react with host tissues and elicit significant immune responses are possible pathogenetic agents involved in the development and progression of BD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. ghasemiy@sums.ac.ir
authors.forename: Younes
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ghasemi
authors.forename: Fatemeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dabbagh
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rasoul-Amini
authors.forename: Afshin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Borhani Haghighi
authors.forename: Mohammad Hossein
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Morowvat
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D001528:Behcet Syndrome / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D051193:Toll-Like Receptors
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D005656:Fungal Proteins; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins; D051193:Toll-Like Receptors