Open AccessSera with high levels of anti‐smooth muscle and anti‐mitochondrial antibodies frequently bind to cytoskeleton proteins
Author(s) -
DIGHIERO G.,
LYMBERI P.,
MONOT C.,
ABUAF N.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
clinical & experimental immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.329
H-Index - 135
eISSN - 1365-2249
pISSN - 0009-9104
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2249.1990.tb05402.x
Subject(s) - tropomyosin , myosin , desmin , antibody , actin , sma* , vimentin , antigen , biology , immunology , cytoskeleton , microbiology and biotechnology , biochemistry , immunohistochemistry , mathematics , combinatorics , cell
SUMMARY Using ELISA methods, 54 sera from chronic active hepatitis (CAH) patients displaying high levels of anti‐smooth muscle antibodies (SMA) and 18 sera from primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) patients with high levels of anti‐M2 antibodies were examined for the presence of high antibody levels against actin, tubulin, myosin, tropomyosin, troponin. vimenlin and desmin. Our results showed that: (i) in CAH with high SMA activity, increased antibody levels were found in 51‐9% of sera for actin, 31.5% for myosin, 35.2% for tubulin, 34.0% for tropomyosin, 11.3% for troponin. 22.6% for vimentin and 43.4% for desmin, compared with natural antibody levels in 21 normal sera; (ii) Similar high levels of these antibodies were found in the case of PBC; (iii) in most cases, sera simultaneously bound to several antigens of the panel; and (iv) approximately 26% of the CAH sera were found to be negative with the seven antigens examined while 22% were reacted with a cytoskeleton protein (CP) other than actin. These results indicate that current opinion associating SMA with anti‐actin activity in CAH is confirmed for only 50% of cases and that although a good correlation between SMA and anti‐CP antibodies can be obtained, there is still a significant percentage of SMA for which the putative antigen recognized needs to be determined.