Glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) catalyzes the conversion of glutamic acid to gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Autoantibodies directed against GAD (antiGAD-Ab) have been described in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, stiff-man syndrome, and in a few patients with progressive cerebellar ataxia. The presence of these autoantibodies suggests an autoimmune pathophysiological mechan...

Dietary management of autoimmune diabetes includes low glycemic foods classified from the glycemic index, but it does not consider the role that immunoreactive foods may play with the immunological etiology of the disease. We measured the reactivity of either monoclonal or polyclonal affinity-purified antibodies to insulin, insulin receptor alpha, insulin receptor beta, zinc transporter 8 (ZnT8...

Monoclonal antibodies were generated using 5 d neonatal rat dentate gyrus as immunogen. One antibody of this panel, G6E3, recognized a cell-surface protein with an Mr = 43,000 that was found only in the nervous system. The antigen was expressed as early as embryonic day 13 in the rat in both the brain and spinal cord. In the adult rat the antigen was demonstrated immunohistochemically to be res...

PURPOSE In people with suspected inflammatory CNS disease, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is commonly analyzed. Antibody-associated limbic encephalitis (ab-LE) and anti-NMDAR-encephalitis are recognized as two major syndromes of autoimmune epilepsies. Here, we investigated the diagnostic value of CSF findings in these two entities. METHODS We reviewed patients from our tertiary epilepsy centre wit...

Fish allergy is associated with moderate to severe IgE-mediated reactions to the calcium binding parvalbumins present in fish muscle. Allergy to multiple fish species is caused by parvalbumin-specific cross-reactive IgE recognizing conserved epitopes. In this study, we aimed to produce cross-reactive single chain variable fragment (scFv) antibodies for the detection of parvalbumins in fish extr...

Stiff-person syndrome is a rare neurological disorder characterized by stiffness of skeletal muscles with superimposed spasms. The syndrome is a putative autoimmune disease occurring as an idiopathic or paraneoplastic condition. It is often associated with antibodies to glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) or, less commonly, to the 128 kD synaptic protein later amphiphysin (AMPH) and few other aut...

A membrane form of L-glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) was identified and purified to apparent homogeneity from hog brain. The purified GAD was established as an integral membrane protein by phase-partitioning assay, charge-shift electrophoresis, and chromatography on a hydrophobic interaction column. This membrane GAD has a native molecular mass of 96 ± 5 kDa and is a homodimer of 48 ± 3-kDa subun...

Objective—To investigate whether the stiV limb syndrome may be separated from the stiV man syndrome and progressive encephalomyelitis with rigidity on simple clinical grounds, and whether such a distinction has implications for aetiology, treatment, and prognosis. Methods— Twenty three patients referred over a 10 year period with rigidity and spasms in association with continuous motor unit act...