INSTABILITY OF NATURAL ANTIBODY REPERTOIRES IN SYSTEMIC LUPUS-ERYTHEMATOSUS PATIENTS, REVEALED BY MULTIPARAMETRIC ANALYSIS OF SERUM ANTIBODY REACTIVITIES

Recent views on autoimmune diseases invoke generalized but specific pe rturbations in antibody repertoires, rather than the clonally restrict ed or non-specific polyclonal alterations proposed thus far. The prese nt experiments analyse serum antibody reactivities in 24 systemic lupu s erythematosus (SLE) patients and 17 healthy controls, using a method that quantitatively scores a large number of antibody reactivities an d allows for multiparametric statistical analyses. The results show gl obal but relatively specific perturbations in SLE antibody repertoires , and identify novel disease-associated reactivity patterns. Furthermo re, a time series analysis of serum antibodies over 3 months demonstra tes instability of natural antibody repertoires in individual SLE pati ents, contrasting with their remarkable conservation in healthy donors . Moreover, the method used clusters controls and patients independent ly, and might prove of diagnostic value, once large data bases are est ablished.