Antibodies as Predictors of Complex Autoimmune Diseases

Abstract

Emerging evidence has suggested environmental factors such as infections and xenobiotics and some dietary proteins and peptides in the pathogenesis of many autoimmune diseases. Considering the fact that autoantibodies can often be detected prior to the onset of a disease, in this study an enzyme immunoassay was used for measurement of antibodies against different highly purified antigens or synthetic peptides originating not only from human tissue, but also from cross-reactive epitopes of infectious agents, dietary proteins and xenobiotics. The measurement of antibodies against a panel of antigens allows for identification of patterns or antibody signatures, rather than just one or two markers of autoimmunity, thus establishing the premise for increased sensitivity and specificity of prediction, as well as positive predictive values. This panel of different autoantibodies was applied to 420 patients with different autoimmune diseases, including pernicious anemia, celiac disease, thyroiditis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, Addison's disease, type 1 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and autoimmunity, which are presented in this article. In all cases, the levels of these antibodies were significantly elevated in patients versus controls. Antibody patterns related to neuroautoimmune disorders, cancer, and patients with somatic hypermutation will be shown in a subsequent article. We believe that this novel 96 antigen-specific autoantibody or predictive antibody screen should be studied for its incorporation into routine medical examinations. Clinicians should be aware that the detection of antibodies should not automatically mean that a patient will definitely become ill, but would rather give a percentage of risk for autoimmune disease over subsequent months or years.

A novel strategy for the rapid preparation and isolation of intact immune complexes from peptide mixtures

“…Nevertheless, high levels of autoantibodies in autoimmune patients are usually associated with increased cross reactivity and/or "epitope spreading" (Bellone, 2005). As a matter of fact, employing full-length proteins for autoimmune diagnosis remains problematic (Vojdani, 2008). To overcome these limitations, the application of epitope peptides for autoimmune diagnostics has been suggested (Andresen and Grotzinger, 2009).…”

Correlation of Tissue Antibodies and Food Immune Reactivity in Randomly Selected Patient Specimens

“…Tissue antibodies can show up in the bloodstream up to ten years before the clinical threshold of disease has been reached [24,[72][73][74]. The detection of autoantibodies in this study indicates the patient is set up for autoimmune disease and the foods testing positive may have an impact on tissue antibody production.…”

“…The testing method used was enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), as previously described by Vojdani [23,24], for the detection of IgG, IgA or IgG+IgA to the specific antigen. Specimens were assessed in side by side duplicate to ensure reproducibility.…”

A review of autoimmune diseases associated with cancer

“…Emerging evidence has implicated certain environmental factors such as infections, and dietary proteins in the pathogenesis of many autoimmune diseases and cancer 1 . This article attempts to correlate the common factors, with recent updates from the literature.…”