Origin of antiphospholipid antibodies

The origin of the antiphospholipid antibodies and mechanisms involved in th eir production in patients with the antiphospholipid syndrome is not unders tood. The authors hypothesize that incidental exposure to phospholipid-bind ing viral or bacterial products that have structural similarity to the phos pholipid binding site of beta (2)-glycoprotein I and like this protein can bind to phospholipids and may trigger the antiphospholipid antibody product ion in these patients. As a support for this hypothesis the authors describ e production of pathogenic antiphospholipid antibodies in normal mice by im munization with a synthetic phospholipid-binding viral peptide that has seq uence similarity with beta (2)-glycoprotein I (molecular mimicry).