Reply to "CDR2 and CDR2L Yo Antigens in Paraneoplastic Cerebellar Degeneration".

We agree that our results do not show the mechanism(s) causing the Purkinje cell death; however, our main finding is that Yo antibodies detected in paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration (PCD) patients bind endogenous CDR2L, and not endogenous CDR2. However, we would point out that we found similar results with a mouse CDR2 antibody raised toward the full-length protein.1 Greenlee and Carlson have reported that recombinant CDR2 and CDR2L were both able to prevent antibody-mediated cytotoxicity,2 which could indicate that antibodies toward a common epitope are needed for PCD pathology. We have previously shown that adsorption with recombinant CDR2 only partially removes Yo antibody staining of Purkinje cells, whereas adsorption with recombinant CDR2L completely removes all staining.3 We agree with Greenlee and Carlson that the roles of CDR2 and CDR2L in antibody-mediated Purkinje cell death have not been definitively established, and we concluded as much in our paper. [Extracted from the article]