Abstract
Autoimmune diseases are rare, but their incidence has increased over the past decades. Interestingly, the co-occurrence of autoimmune diseases is well documented; however, data on the presence of more than one specific autoantibody in healthy individuals are not available. Here, we investigated the prevalence of several autoantibodies in a cohort of over 6,000 healthy persons. While individual autoantibodies were rarely detected (i.e. ranging from 0.3% for ANCA to 4.6% for anti-TPO), the cumulative prevalence of the tested autoantibodies was as high as 10%. Furthermore, our results demonstrate co-occurrence of ANA with specific autoantibodies that target TPO, CCP and Dsg1/3, while ANCA and autoantibodies to PCA and BP180/BP230 were not more frequent in ANA positive compared to ANA negative samples. This indicates that shared and independent mechanisms influence loss of tolerance to distinct sets of self-antigens. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Experimental Dermatology |
Number of pages | 3 |
Publisher | Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
Publication date | 2014 |
Pages | 519-521 |
ISBN (Print) | 1600-0625 (Electronic)\r0906-6705 (Linking) |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2014 |