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High incidence of antibodies to lens proteins in sera from patients with uveitis
- Source :
- Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology. 245:683-688
- Publication Year :
- 2006
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2006.
-
Abstract
- Uveitis is an intraocular inflammatory disease in which autoimmune reactions have been discussed in playing an important role. Many data in this respect derived from the animal model of "experimental autoimmune uveitis", where several organ-specific autoantigens have been described such as the retinal S-antigen and the interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein. However, their diagnostic and pathogenic role in humans has been controversially discussed. In recent studies, the possible relevance of betaB1-crystallin, present in lens and ciliary body, has been outlined. We, therefore, wanted to analyse whether sera from patients with uveitis might contain antibodies to lens proteinsHuman lenses from cadaveric eyes were shock frozen, homogenized, and resuspended. The resulting suspension (human lens protein fraction--HLPF) was analyzed for antigenicity by ELISA and Western blotting with patients' sera. A total of 165 patients with uveitis, 54 patients with scleritis and episcleritis, 56 patients with other eye diseases, and 112 healthy blood donors were studied.Twenty-six (49%) of the 53 patients with anterior uveitis, 17 (32%) of the 53 patients with intermediate uveitis and 7 (22%) of 32 patients with posterior uveitis reacted in the ELISA with the HLPF. Antibodies to lens antigens were detected in one-third of patients with panuveitis and retinal vasculitis. In contrast, only 12% of the healthy blood donors were positive in the ELISA. The number of patients with an autoimmune response to alpha-crystallins in Western blot predominated in all investigated groups.These data indicate that antibodies to lens proteins occur in a high incidence in sera from patients with uveitis. Forty-nine percent of the patients with anterior uveitis and only 12% of healthy controls were positive in the ELISA. In our groups of patients and controls the autoantibodies reacted in the Western blot predominantly with alpha-crystallin. Further studies are required to analyze in more detail the clinical and etiopathogenetic relevance of the antilens antibodies in uveitis.
- Subjects :
- Pathology
medicine.medical_specialty
Blotting, Western
Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay
Autoantigens
Uveitis
Lens protein
Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
medicine
Humans
alpha-Crystallins
Autoantibodies
biology
business.industry
Retinal vasculitis
Incidence
Autoantibody
Episcleritis
medicine.disease
Crystallins
beta-Crystallins
Sensory Systems
Ophthalmology
Immunology
biology.protein
Intermediate uveitis
Antibody
business
Scleritis
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 1435702X and 0721832X
- Volume :
- 245
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....9c3a9638d57b3180b09a6b61e7f727c4