Antibodies to centromere antigens measured by an automated enzyme immunoassay

Abstract

Background: Anticentromere antibodies (ACA) are frequently observed in patients with Raynaud's phenomenon and in the CREST syndrome, a subclass of systemic sclerosis. Likewise, ACA are also found in other autoimmune and non-autoimmune diseases. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the clinical utility of the measurement of antibodies to the best characterized centromere antigen (CENP-B) protein by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) that uses human recombinant CENP-B antigen and compare it with indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) on HEp-2 cells. Methods: We have analyzed 128 sera samples from patients with the following diseases: systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE, n=53), mixed connective tissue disease ( n=1), primary Sjögren syndrome ( n=10), primary Raynaud's phenomenon ( n=10), primary systemic sclerosis ( n=7), polymyositis/dermatomyositis ( n=3), rheumatoid arthritis ( n=9), cutaneous lupus ( n=5), primary biliary cirrhosis ( n=9), chronic autoimmune hepatitis ( n=5) and ANA-positive non-autoimmune diseases ( n=16). Results: The ELISA evaluated shows a good concordance with IFA, with the advantage of being an automatable quantitative technique. Conclusions: Measurement of anticentromere antibodies by this ELISA using human recombinant antigen is a useful alternative for the autoimmune laboratory checking for diseases associated with anticentromere antibodies.