Nucleoprotein-latex agglutination test in connective tissue diseases.

Research into the aetiology of the collagen diseases has been guided recently by the speculation that they may be manifestations of hypersensitivity. Rheumatoid arthritis and disseminated lupus erythamatosus especially, it has been suggested, could be the results of "auto-immune" processes. The work of Klemperer, Gueft, Lee, Leuchtenberger, and Pollister (1950) focused attention on the role of deoxyribosenucleic acid in disseminated lupus erythematosus. Subsequently, Miescher and Strassle (1957) described deoxyribosenucleic acid antibodies in the disease. These investigators used haemagglutination of sensitized sheep red cells to estimate antibody titres, but suggested that latex particles might also be used. Christian, Mendez-Bryan, and Larson (1958) recently described the use of latex particles sensitized with nucleoprotein as a test for disseminated lupus erythematosus. This report describes our results with a nucleoprotein-latex agglutination test on the sera of patients with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and certain other diseases. We also performed F II haemagglutination tests (method of Jacobson, Kammerer, Wolf, Epstein, and Heller, 1956) on most of these sera.