AUTOANTIBODY REPERTOIRES IN ANIMALS WITH LENS-INDUCED UVEITIS AFTER DIFFERENT THERAPIES USING MEGABLOT TECHNIQUE - A COMPARISON

Screening of sera for autoantibodies by means of Western blot (WE) tes ting primarily demonstrates complex staining patterns. Statistical tec hniques (MegaBlot) based on digital image analysis can serve as a diag nostic tool in autoimmune diseases. In this study, autoantibody repert oires of rats with lens-induced uveitis (LIU) were compared under vari ous therapeutic conditions (no treatment, single-dose allopurinol, fre quent application of allopurinol, and methylprednisolone). The new Meg aBlot technique demonstrated changes in the autoantibody repertoire of LIU rat sera after treatment and discriminated among the different tr eatment modalities. The MegaBlot procedure can not only help to identi fy pathogenetic autoantigens but also detects and monitors therapeutic ally induced changes in autoantibody repertoires (ie, immodulating eff ects). It is thus a valuable tool for evaluating immunomodulating trea tments.