Antibodies to centromere antigens measured by an automated enzyme immunoassay.

Abstract Background : Anticentromere antibodies (ACA) are frequently observed in patients with Raynaud's phenomenon and in the CREST syndrome, a subclass of systemic sclerosis. Likewise, ACA are also found in other autoimmune and non-autoimmune diseases. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the clinical utility of the measurement of antibodies to the best characterized centromere antigen (CENP-B) protein by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) that uses human recombinant CENP-B antigen and compare it with indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) on HEp-2 cells. Methods : We have analyzed 128 sera samples from patients with the following diseases: systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE, n =53), mixed connective tissue disease ( n =1), primary Sjogren syndrome ( n =10), primary Raynaud's phenomenon ( n =10), primary systemic sclerosis ( n =7), polymyositis/dermatomyositis ( n =3), rheumatoid arthritis ( n =9), cutaneous lupus ( n =5), primary biliary cirrhosis ( n =9), chronic autoimmune hepatitis ( n =5) and ANA-positive non-autoimmune diseases ( n =16). Results : The ELISA evaluated shows a good concordance with IFA, with the advantage of being an automatable quantitative technique. Conclusions : Measurement of anticentromere antibodies by this ELISA using human recombinant antigen is a useful alternative for the autoimmune laboratory checking for diseases associated with anticentromere antibodies.