0000000000248011
AUTHOR
Ingrid Wies
Establishment of standardised SLA/LP immunoassays: specificity for autoimmune hepatitis, worldwide occurrence, and clinical characteristics
Background: Antibodies to soluble liver antigen/liver pancreas (SLA/LP) are specific markers of autoimmune hepatitis. Their target antigen has recently been cloned. Aims: To establish standardised immunoassays using the recombinant antigen, and to assess the frequency and significance of seropositivity in patients from different countries. Methods: An enzyme linked immunoassay was developed using purified recombinant antigen and validated by testing sera from 200 healthy blood donors and 1026 patients with various liver and non-liver diseases. The assay was then applied to 454 sera from 419 patients with autoimmune hepatitis from different countries. All sera were also tested by inhibition …
Identification of target antigen for SLA/LP autoantibodies in autoimmune hepatitis.
Summary Background Autoantibodies are a hallmark of autoimmune hepatitis, but most are not disease specific. Autoantibodies to soluble liver antigen (SLA) and to liver and pancreas antigen (LP) have been described as disease specific, occurring in about 30% of all patients with autoimmune hepatitis, but no standardised assays are available. Methods We tested 2000 serum samples from patients with various liver diseases and controls for SLA autoantibodies by inhibition ELISA. Serum samples positive for SLA antibodies were used for immunoscreening of cDNA expression libraries. Identified clones were tested against a panel of serum samples positive for SLA and LP autoantibodies and control seru…
Fine specificity of autoantibodies to soluble liver antigen and liver/pancreas
Autoantibodies to soluble liver antigen and liver pancreas (SLA/LP) have been described as specific markers for Autoimmune Hepatitis (AIH), occurring in about 20% of patients with AIH. The high degree of specificity for SLA/LP in autoimmune liver disease suggests a possible role in its pathogenesis. This study aims to map the exact epitope(s) recognized by SLA/LP autoantibodies and to assess the role of molecular mimicry between microbial antigens and self-epitopes. Using SLA/LP-reactive sera of 18 individual AIH patients and a pool of 15 patient sera, we found the dominant immune reactivity directed to peptide p395-414 and a less prominent immune response to 2 other epitopes adjacent to th…