AUTOANTIBODIES FROM PATIENTS WITH PRIMARY BILIARY-CIRRHOSIS PREFERENTIALLY REACT WITH THE AMINO-TERMINAL DOMAIN OF NUCLEAR-PORE COMPLEX GLYCOPROTEIN GP210
J. Wesierskagadek et al., AUTOANTIBODIES FROM PATIENTS WITH PRIMARY BILIARY-CIRRHOSIS PREFERENTIALLY REACT WITH THE AMINO-TERMINAL DOMAIN OF NUCLEAR-PORE COMPLEX GLYCOPROTEIN GP210, The Journal of experimental medicine, 182(4), 1995, pp. 1159-1162
Patients with primary biliary cirrhosis frequently develop autoantibod
ies directed to gp210, a major glycoprotein of the nuclear pore comple
x. This protein contains a large glycosylated cisternal domain, a sing
le transmembrane segment, and a short cytoplasmic tail. It has been pr
eviously shown that autoantibodies from primary biliary cirrhosis pati
ents exclusively react with the cytoplasmic tail. We demonstrate that
autoantibodies against gp210 recognize at least two different epitopes
. 4 out of 12 anti-gp210 positive sera reacted with the fragment consi
sting of the cytoplasmic tail, and 8 sera targeted a novel epitope loc
ated within the large glycosylated lumenal domain. Moreover, our data
prove that carbohydrate moieties are an essential part of this novel e
pitope. We propose, therefore, that future screening assays should be
performed with antigens possessing both epitopes to detect all sera wi
th anti-gp210 specificity.