Antibodies to cerebellar Purkinje cells in patients with paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration and ovarian carcinoma

Abstract

Sera from 2 patients with ovarian carcinoma and paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration confirmed postmortem were reacted with frozen sections of human cerebellum and stained using indirect immunofluorescence methods. Both sera produced bright cytoplasmic staining of Purkinje cells and of neurons within deep cerebellar nuclei. Titration of these sera to end point revealed staining at final dilutions of 1:640 and 1:2,560, respectively. Neither of these sera reacted with sections of human cerebrum, basal ganglia, spinal cord, peripheral nerve, lung, liver, kidney, or ovary. Staining of Purkinje cells was not obtained with sera from 34 normal, healthy controls, 5 patients with oat cell carcinoma of the lung, 6 patients with inflammatory central nervous system disorders, or 12 of 14 neurologically normal patients with ovarian carcinoma. Sera from 2 neurologically normal patients with ovarian carcinoma, however, produced staining of Purkinje cells and deep nuclei similar to that obtained with sera from patients with paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration. The present study documents the presence of antibodies to Purkinje cells in patients with ovarian carcinoma and cerebellar degeneration and demonstrates that development of these antibodies may antedate the onset of clinically evident cerebellar degeneration.

Paraneoplastic Cerebellar Degeneration: Successful Early Detection and Treatment of Cancer through Characterization of the Anti-Purkinje Cell Antibody.

“…The precise etiology of the paraneoplastic syndrome is unknown. However, there is increasing evidence to support the involvement of immunological mechanisms (3)(4)(5)(6)(7). Anti-Purkinje cell antibodies are frequently detected in the serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with gynecological or breast cancers.…”

Antineurofilament antibody evaluation in neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus

“…The neuronal cell intermediate filament or neurofilament is composed of 3 separate polypeptides of molecular weights 205, 160, and 70 kd (14,15). Studies indicating an increased incidence of antineurofilament antibodies (ANFA) in viral infections of the CNS (16) and in paraneoplastic neurologic disease (17,18), as well as recent work indicating an increased incidence of anticytoskeletal antibodies in connective tissue disease (19), have provided the primary focus of our study, which is to examine the occurrence and titer of ANFA in patients with NPSLE.…”

The role of humoral autoimmunity in gastrointestinal neuromuscular diseases

“…Anti-Yo, also known as anti-Purkinje cell cytoplasmic antibody (PCA) show cytoplasmic immunoreactivity of cerebellar Purkinje cells and are associated with gynaecological and breast cancer (Greenlee et al 1983;Graus et al 1988). Anti-Ri (ANNA-2), primarily associated with breast cancer, also bind neuron-specific RNA binding proteins but in contrast to anti-Hu, label neuronal nuclei of central neurons only (Budde-Steffen et al 1988;Luque et al 1991).…”