Anticentromere-A and anticentromere-B antibodies show high concordance and similar clinical associations in patients with systemic sclerosis
Journal of Rheumatology, 10/08/2010
Hanke K et al. – Detected by LIA, anti-CENP-A and anti-CENP-B antibodies show high concordance in patients with SSc and share significant associations to clinical manifestations, but are not completely identical. Detection of both antibodies in parallel may slightly increase the diagnostic sensitivity for SSc.
Methods- Sera from 280 consecutive patients with SSc and 259 controls tested for presence of anti-CENP-A and anti-CENP-B antibodies by monospecific line immunoblot assay (LIA) with recombinant human centromere proteins A and B as well as by indirect immunofluorescence (IIF)
- Crossreactivity and possible associations with clinical manifestations studied
- Both antibodies revealed diagnostic sensitivity of 36.8% and specificity of > 97% for SSc, with high concordance rate of 94.3% despite different amino acid sequences of antigens and absence of crossreactivity
- Significant correlation of the antibody levels measured by LIA
- Both antibodies associated with similar clinical manifestations and identified patients with limited disease and rather mild skin sclerosis