Detection of autoantibodies by indirect immunofluorescence and related techniques: the pathologist´s view

Abstract

The increasing importance of autoimmunity based diseases attracts the interest of pathologists, for whom the wide acceptance of indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA) technique at autoantibody screening is a relevant diagnostic approach. The IFA method has gained perfection by introducing the so called diagnostic mosaics, consisting of various tissue sections (primate and/or mammalian in origin), of HEp-2 cells, of microdots composed of specific purified antigen(s) and/or of transfected HEK cells expressing the target autoantigens. As result of this, the IFA technique dominates not only in the detection of anti-nuclear antibodies