ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Panminerva Medica 2002 March;44(1):33-5

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Evaluation of antibodies to thymine ROS-modified DNA poly(dT), in patients with immunologic disorders: relationships to anti n-DNA and anti ENA autoantibodies

Brusca I., Li Vigni P., Sucato R., Cilluffo N., La Chiusa S. M.

From the Department of Laboratory Medicine “Buccheri La Ferla Fatebenefratelli” Hospital, Palermo, Italy

Background. Hydroxyl rad­i­cal, one of the ­most ­potent of all reac­tive oxy­gen spe­cies, is ­known to mod­i­fy ade­nine and thy­mine in cel­lu­lar DNA, pro­duc­ing ­some mod­i­fied DNA frag­ments (ROS-DNA) ­with dif­fer­ent anti­gen­ic prop­er­ties. Despite sev­er­al in ­vitro stud­ies ­about ROS-DNA, ­data regard­ing ­their clin­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance are ­scanty. The aim of our ­study was to ­seek out the pres­ence and clin­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of the ­anti ­poly(dT) ­auto-anti­bod­ies in a ­group of ­patients sus­pect­ed of auto­im­mune dis­ease.
Methods. We initial­ly eval­u­at­ed ­more ­than 900 con­sec­u­tive ­sera of hos­pi­tal­ized ­patients (­range age ­from 6 to 70 yrs) ­referred to our labor­a­to­ry dur­ing 18 ­months. Anti n-DNA, ­anti-ENA and ­poly(dT) ­autoanti­bod­ies ­were per­formed on 158 ANA pos­i­tive ­sera and 28 ANA neg­a­tive ­sera ­from ­patients strong­ly sus­pect­ed of rheu­mat­ic dis­eas­es or affect­ed by HCV infec­tion.
Results. Anti ­poly (dT) ­were ­found in 22 out of 186 ­sera. As ­regards the clin­i­cal eval­u­a­tion, 8 ­patients ­were affect­ed by SLE, 5 by Scleroderma, 3 by HCV-relat­ed chron­ic hep­a­titis, 4 by recur­rent abor­tions (with­out pres­ence of the ­anti-car­di­ol­i­pin anti­bod­ies and oth­er clin­i­cal symp­toms). In two ­patients the ACR cri­te­ria and the clin­i­cal ­aspects did not ­allow a def­i­nite diag­no­sis. Anti-Histones ­were detect­ed in 18 out of 22 ­poly (dT) pos­i­tive ­patients.
Conclusions. Our ­data sug­gest ­that ­anti ­poly(dT) ­autoanti­bod­ies are sen­si­tive mark­ers of var­i­ous auto­im­mune dis­eas­es, but ­with a ­minor spec­i­fic­ity as com­pared to ­anti n-DNA for the diag­no­sis of SLE.