AN AUTOANTIBODY REACTIVE WITH NUCLEI OF POLYMORPHONUCLEAR NEUTROPHILS - A CELL-DIFFERENTIATION MARKER

  • 1 January 1981
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 58  (4) , 768-771
Abstract
An autoantibody that reacted with nuclei of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) was detected at titers of > 10 in sera of 25 of 50 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 36 of 50 with autoimmune chronic active hepatitis, but in 0 of 160 controls comprising 24 patients with alcoholic cirrhosis, 36 with multiple myeloma and 100 healthy subjects. Through the use of enriched populations of hemopoietic cells, this antibody was cell-specific, reacting only with the nucleus of the mature neutrophil. It was unreactive with nuclei of progenitor cells in the myeloid series and with nuclei of eosinophils, monocytes, lymphocytes and thymocytes. It reacted with a determinant that appeared to be a differentiation antigen. This cell-specific autoantibody may be of value in analytical studies of granulocyte maturation.