BACKGROUND It has recently been shown that humoral antigastric autoreactivities occur in a substantial number of Helicobacter pylori infected patients. AIMS To analyse the relevance of such antigastric autoantibodies for histological and serological parameters of the infection as well as for the clinical course. METHODS Gastric biopsy samples and sera from 126 patients with upper abdominal ...

Studies on autoantibody production in patients treated with tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) inhibitors reported contradictory results. We investigated in a prospective study the efficacy of a treatment with human monoclonal anti-TNF-alpha antibody (adalimumab) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and we evaluated the relationship between treatment efficacy and the incidence and ti...

OBJECTIVE There is limited information from large-scale prospective studies regarding the prediction of type 1 diabetes by specific types of pancreatic islet autoantibodies, either alone or in combination. Thus, we studied the extent to which specific autoantibodies are predictive of type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Two cohorts were derived from the first screening for islet cell ...

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) affect up to 1 in 68 children. Autism-specific autoantibodies directed against fetal brain proteins have been found exclusively in a subpopulation of mothers whose children were diagnosed with ASD or maternal autoantibody-related autism. We tested the impact of autoantibodies on brain development in mice by transferring human antigen-specific IgG directly into t...

BACKGROUND Autoimmune comorbidities and circulating autoantibodies have been observed in vitiligo patients, but differences in rate are present according to countries in which the studies were performed, perhaps owing to ethnic diversities or different trigger factors. OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of circulating autoantibodies and overt autoimmune diseases in a fairly large sample of ...

Autoantibodies against antigens expressed by insulin-producing β cells are circulating in both healthy individuals and patients at risk of developing Type 1 diabetes. Recent studies suggest that another set of antibodies (anti-idiotypic antibodies) exists in this antibody/antigen interacting network to regulate auto-reactive responses. Anti-idiotypic antibodies may block the antigen-binding sit...

We report the first case of a patient with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), who later developed acquired amegakaryocytic thrombocytopenia (AAMT), with autoantibodies to the thrombopoietin (TPO) receptor (c-Mpl). A 64-year-old woman, with chronic hepatitis C, developed severe thrombocytopenia and was diagnosed with ITP. She died of liver failure. A...

AIM To evaluate thyroid function and the presence of antithyroid autoantibodies in patients with sarcoidosis, compared to patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (controls). METHODS Sera were obtained from 26 patients (19 women and 7 men) with active sarcoidosis, age and sex matched to 26 patients with diagnosed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Baseline thyrotropin, total tr...

BACKGROUND Pemphigus autoantibodies have been reported in healthy relatives of pemphigus patients suggesting a genetic predisposition in the pathogenesis of the disease. AIMS To test for the presence of pemphigus autoantibodies in healthy relatives of Turkish patients of pemphigus. METHODS The study group comprised 45 pemphigus patients, 75 unaffected family members and 47 healthy individua...

A common serologic finding in systemic autoimmune diseases is the presence of autoantibodies against intracellular autoantigens. Although their pathogenesis is not fully understood, autoantibodies are important tools for establishing diagnosis, classification and prognosis of autoimmune diseases. In Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and Sjögren's syndrome (SS) autoantibodies mainly target mult...