Serum samples from 66 seropositive subjects (56 with a history of intravenous drug abuse), including asymptomatic carriers and patients with persistent generalised lymphadenopathy (PGL), AIDS related complex (ARC), and AIDS, were tested by indirect immunofluorescence on rat tissue sections and HEp-2 cells for the presence of antibodies to nuclei, smooth muscle, intermediate filaments (anti-IMF)...

Therapeutic preparations of polyspecific IgG obtained from plasma pools of a large number of normal donors (IVIg) express anti-idiotypic activity against a wide spectrum of natural and disease-associated autoantibodies. The present study investigated the origin of anti-idiotypic activity against autoantibodies to factor VIII. The neutralizing activity of pools of IgG against patients' anti-fact...

Treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with infliximab (Remicade) has been associated with the induction of antinuclear autoantibodies (ANA) and anti-double-stranded DNA (anti-dsDNA) autoantibodies. In the present study we investigated the humoral immune response induced by infliximab against organ-specific or non-organ-specific antigens not only in RA patients but also in patients with ankylos...

OBJECTIVE Sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM), an intractable progressive muscle disease, frequently occurs in older persons. sIBM pathogenesis may involve protein degradation dysfunction and immune abnormalities. Autoantibodies recognizing cytosolic 5'-nucleotidase 1A (cN1A) were found in plasma and serum from sIBM patients. However, whether anti-cN1A autoantibodies play a pathogenic role ...

Several types of inflammatory cells infiltrate the affected tissue. Different subsets of “T” lymphocyte may be observed in different affected organs in various stages of SSc. CD4 lymphocytes are increased in the affected skin, whereas CD8 lymphocytes are found more commonly in bronchoalveolar lavage of patients who have scleroderma-related interstitial lung disease (ILD). Several autoantibodies...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to define the frequency and associated clinical phenotype of anti-MDA5 autoantibodies in a large UK based, predominantly Caucasian, cohort of patients with juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM). METHODS Serum samples and clinical data were obtained from 285 patients with JDM recruited to the UK Juvenile Dermatomyositis Cohort and Biomarker Study. The presence o...

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of myositis specific autoantibodies (MSAs) and several myositis associated autoantibodies (MAAs) in a large group of patients with myositis. METHODS A total of 417 patients with myositis from 11 European countries (198 patients with polymyositis (PM), 181 with dermatomyositis (DM), and 38 with inclusion body myositis (IBM)) were serologically analysed by ...