L. Migliore et al., Cytogenetic study and FISH analysis in lymphocytes of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and systemic sclerosis (SS) patients, MUTAGENESIS, 14(2), 1999, pp. 227-231
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and systemic sclerosis (SS) are autoimmu
ne diseases characterized by the presence of antibodies against ubiquitous
self antigens, The presence of clastogenic factors (CF) capable of inducing
chromosome breakage has also been reported in the plasma of some patients.
We aimed to assess basal frequency of cytogenetic damage in lymphocytes an
d presence of CF in the plasma of two groups of SLE and SS patients display
ing a different antibody status (ACA-/Scl70+ or ACA+/Scl70-), using the mic
ronucleus (MN) assay and FISH analysis with a pancentromeric DNA probe. As
compared with controls, we found significantly higher MN frequencies in SS
patients, but not in SLE patients. In addition, our data showed a significa
nt prevalence of C-MN in SLE and ACA-/Scl70 + patients and of C+MN in ACAS
/Scl70- patients. We observed a positive response in three out of the five
CF experiments performed on plasma of SS patients. The three patients whose
plasma caused MN induction were subtyped as ACA-/Scl70+, whereas the other
subjects had ACAs, The same tests on six SLE patients gave negative result
s.