AUTOANTIBODIES TO PHOSPHOLIPIDS AND TO THE COAGULATION PROTEINS IN AIDS

In HIV-1 infection, an increased prevalence of anticardiolipin autoant ibodies (aCL) and lupus anticoagulant (LA) has been described. In orde r to see if these antibodies are isolated or, like in autoimmune disea ses, associated with hematological disorders and with antibodies to ot her phospholipids and to proteins of coagulation, we investigated 3 gr oups of patients: 1. 342 HIV-1 infected patients, 2. 145 control patie nts including 61 systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients, 58 patie nts with a connective tissue disease, 15 patients with stroke, 11 pati ents with syphilis and 3. 100 blood donors. In HIV-1 infection antipro thrombin (aPrT) antibodies were present in 25% of patients, the preval ence of antiphosphatidylcholine antibodies (aPC) (50%) was almost as h igh as aCL (64%), and 39% had both antibodies. Absorption on liposomes of the latter revealed an heterogeneous mixture of aCL and aPC or cro ss-reacting antibodies. In contrast with SLE, anti-beta 2-glycoprotein I(4%), LA (1%), biological false positive test for syphilis (0.3%), t hrombosis (p <0.001) were uncommon. In HIV-1 infection, antiphospholip id antibodies do not associate with features linked to them in SLE or syphilis.