Little evidence for anti-endothelial cell antibodies in microscopic polyarteritis and Wegener's granulomatosis

摘要

We studied sera from patients with vasculitis and controls for the presence of anti-endothelial cell antibodies (AECA) and correlated these with disease type, anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) and anti-myeloperoxidase (MPO) antibodies. AECA were detected by a cellular ELISA on cultured human umbilical vein endothelium. AECA were found in the sera of one of 43 patients with microscopic polyarteritis (2), five of 27 patients with Wegener's granulomatosis (19), three of 23 patients with an idiopathic glom-erulonephritis (13), none of eight patients with rheumatoid arthritis and three of 12 patients with rheumatoid vasculitis (25). In patients with a vasculitis AECA titres were higher in sera with a positive ANCA as compared with ANCA negative sera although the difference was not significant (P=0.0702) and there was no correlation between AECA and anti-MPO titres (r=0.1171P=0.114). AECA binding was not enhanced following upregulation of endothelial ICAM-1 and ELAM-1 by TNFα. This study shows that AECA occur infrequently in microscopic polyarteritis and Wegener's granulomatosis, and are not a major antibody system in these vasculitides