No abstract

SummaryIn HIV-1 infection, an increased prevalence of anticardiolipin autoantibodies (aCL) and lupus anticoagulant (LA) has been described. In order to see if these antibodies are isolated or, like in autoimmune diseases, associated with hematological disorders and with antibodies to other phospholipids and to proteins of coagulation, we investigated 3 groups of patients: 1. 342 HIV-1 infected patients, 2. 145 control patients including 61 systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients, 58 patients with a connective tissue disease, 15 patients with stroke, 11 patients with syphilis and 3.100 blood donors. In HIV-1 infection antiprothrombin (aPrT) antibodies were present in 25% of patients, the prevalence of antiphosphatidylcholine antibodies (aPC) (50%) was almost as high as aCL (64%), and 39% had both antibodies. Absorption on liposomes of the latter revealed an heterogeneous mixture of aCL and aPC or cross-reacting antibodies. In contrast with SLE, anti-β2-glycoprotein I (4%), LA (1%), biological false positive test for syphilis (0.3%), thrombosis (p <0.001) were uncommon. In HIV-1 infection, antiphospholipid antibodies do not associate with features linked to them in SLE or syphilis.

Patients with SCD displayed high titers of autoantibodies. This observation may be due only to immune activation and/or dysfunction in SCD, as neither pathogenic specificity of autoantibodies nor autoimmune clinical signs appeared in the majority of cases in our study.

This brief review is focused on different methodologies available for detection of anti-dsDNA antibodies with respect to the best adequacy between biological results of laboratory and clinical significance. A large array of assays has been developed for the measurement of anti-dsDNA. New assays continually introduced have reflected not only technical innovations to avoid difficulties of some assays, but even more with hope to correlate better with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), particularly with its clinical course and exacerbations. Finally, with the development of micro arrays technology new insights into the pathophysiology of autoimmune disease processes should be revealed.