Prevalence of anti-Hsp27 antibodies and their relation to antisperm antibodies in infertile patients

Serum antibodies against the small heat shock protein Hsp27 (HspB1) have been associated with certain diseases but have not been studied in infertility. Sera from 73 infertile patients were tested for antisperm antibodies using agglutination and immobilization tests and ELISA, and for anti-Hsp27 antibodies using ELISA. Of these sera, 31 (42.5%) were positive for anti-Hsp27 antibodies, and 46 (63%) were positive for antisperm antibodies through analysis with at least one method. A total of 17 sera (23.3%) were positive for both anti-Hsp27 and antisperm antibodies. When sera containing both anti-Hsp27 and antisperm antibodies were used for immunofluorescence, the neck and tail of spermatozoa were stained, where the related sperm-specific protein HspB10 (ODF1) is localized. These data suggest that anti-Hsp27 antibodies are elevated in a certain proportion of infertile patients, which, in some of them, could be due to cross-reactivity between Hsp27 and the related sperm cytoskeletal component ODF1.