Heat shock protein 60 (hsp60) is a target antigen in autoimmune diabetes and injections of human hsp60 for tolerance induction were found to protect non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice, an animal model of human type I diabetes, from disease development. We tested whether innate immune cells of NOD mice exhibit an abnormal response to extracellular hsp60. Bone marrow derived macrophages (BMM) were grown from NOD, C57BL/6J, non-obese non-diabetic (NON) mice, and NOD-related congenic variants differing in the Idd-3, Idd-10/18, or major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region. Hsp60-stimulated BMM of NOD mice were found to produce high levels of interleukin (IL)-12(p70). The addition of IL-10 downregulated, whereas cyclooxygenase inhibitors elevated, IL-12(p70) production of activated BMM. BMM of NON, NON-NOD-H-2(g7) as well as of NOD-NON-H-2(nbl) mice produced significantly less IL-12(p70) than BMM of NOD mice, indicating that an interaction between the MHC haplotype and non-MHC genes of the NOD mouse is required for hyperresponsiveness to hsp60. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.