Autoantibody profiles in two patients with non-autoimmune muscle disease implicate a role for gliadin autoreactivity

Olsen, Nancy J.; Prather, Heidi; Li, Quan-Zhen; Burns, Dennis K.

doi:10.1016/j.nmd.2009.12.008

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Volume 20, Issue 3 , Pages 188-191, March 2010

Autoantibody profiles in two patients with non-autoimmune muscle disease implicate a role for gliadin autoreactivity

Nancy J. Olsen
- Rheumatic Diseases Division, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390, USA
- Corresponding author. Address: UT Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390-8884, USA. Tel.: +1 214 648 9049; fax: +1 214 648 7995.
Heidi Prather
- Rheumatic Diseases Division, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390, USA
Quan-Zhen Li
- Department of Immunology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390, USA
Dennis K. Burns
- Department of Pathology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390, USA

Received 7 August 2009; received in revised form 15 November 2009; accepted 22 December 2009.

Abstract

The objective of this case study was to characterize autoreactivity in two patients with non-autoimmune forms of muscle disease who had positivity for antinuclear antibodies (ANA) and Ro (SSA) autoantibodies. Serum samples from these two patients were applied to an autoantigen protein array with more than 70 specificities and were compared to samples from healthy controls and patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Both myopathy patients had high levels of gliadin autoreactivity in serum and one patient had an overall autoantibody profile with lupus-like features. The findings suggest that some disorders of muscle that are considered non-autoimmune, may in fact have autoimmune features. Further examination of the role of subclinical gluten autoreactivity in the pathogenesis of myopathy syndromes has the potential to suggest improved approaches to diagnosis and treatment of these conditions.

Keywords: Autoantibodies, C1q, Dysferlinopathy, Gliadin, Myopathy