To determine the association of HLA antigens with SLE and the clinical findings of the disease, HLA antigens were tested in 58 Japanese patients with SLE, who fulfilled the ARA diagnostic criteria, along with 97 normal controls. HLA class I and II antigens were typed serologically using the antisera provided by the 11th HLA Workshop. Among the HLA class II antigens, further DRB, DQ and DP alleles were defined by DNA typing using the PCR/SSOP method. There were significantly more SLE patients with HLA-B39, DRB1*1501, DRB5*0101 and DQB1*0602 than normal controls. This result suggested that the haplotype of HLA-DRB1*1501-DRB5*0101-DQA1*0102-DQB1*0602 consists of the SLE-associated MHC markers in Japan. There were some positive and negative associations between the HLA antigens and clinical or serological findings in SLE. There is a possibility that some HLA alleles might be related to the clinical and/or serological subsets of SLE.

These data revealed that IL-35 might suppress T cell activation during the peripheral immune responses of RA. Therefore our data suggest that IL-35 might have multiple therapeutic targets.

A 43-year-old woman with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) was treated for lupus pleurisy. During the course of her illness, she abruptly suffered severe right hypochondriac pain and high-grade fever. Abdominal ultrasonography revealed a thickening of the gallbladder wall without cholelithiasis, and she was diagnosed with acute acalculous cholecystitis (AAC). Laparoscopic cholecystostomy was performed. Pathological examination revealed lymphocytic venulitis without arteritis. Antiphospholipid antibodies were not demonstrated during the course of illness. From these findings, the cause of AAC was revealed as a mesenteric inflammatory veno-occlusive disease (MIVOD), which is a novel venopathy mainly affecting the mesenteric vein and/or its branches, causing serious ischemic complications. MIVOD should be considered as a possible cause of AAC.

Ki antigen from rabbit thymus extract was purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation, anti-Ki affinity chromatography, and high pressure liquid chromatography gel filtration. The purified Ki antigen gave a single polypeptide with an MW of 32,000 by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and it specifically reacted with anti-Ki antibody by immunoblotting. The isoelectric point of the Ki antigen was found by isoelectric focusing to be 4.3. An enzymelinked immunosorbent assay using the purified Ki antigen was established, and the clinical significance of the anti-Ki antibody in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) was studied. Thirty of 140 patients with SLE (21.4%) had anti-Ki antibody by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, whereas 11 (7.9%) were positive by double immunodiffusion. Analysis of clinical and serologic data on patients with SLE suggested a higher prevalence of central nervous system involvement in patients with anti-Ki antibody.Synthesis of autoantibodies against cellular components such as DNA, RNA, or proteins has been demonstrated in patients with autoimmune diseases

The clinical significance of anticyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) antibodies in patients with mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD) was assessed. Altogether, 86 sera from MCTD patients, 96 from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, 42 from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients, 23 from systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients, 21 from polymyositis/dermatomyositis (PM/DM) patients, and 17 from those with Sjögren's syndrome (SjS) were tested for anti-CCP antibodies using an enzyme-lined immunosorbent assay. Among the 96 RA patients, anti-CCP antibodies were detected in 85%, with the frequency being significantly higher than in MCTD, SLE, SSc, PM/DM, and SjS patients (9%, 14%, 13%, 14%, and 18%, respectively; P < 0.001). Among eight MCTD patients who fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for RA, only 50% had anti-CCP antibodies, and the prevalence was significantly lower than for all RA patients (p < 0.01). All eight patients who fulfilled the criteria for RA had overlap of SLE and SSc, except one patient, whereas the four anti-CCP-positive patients who did not fulfill the criteria for RA had SjS without overlapping features of SLE and SSc; moreover, most of their antibody titers were low. These results suggested that anti-CCP antibodies are associated with RA in MCTD patients, but careful diagnosis of RA is required if patients with low titers of anti-CCP antibodies lack overlapping SLE and SSc.