OCCURRENCE OF COMPLEMENT-FIXING ANTIBODIES REACTIVE WITH NORMAL TISSUE CONSTITUENTS IN NORMAL AND DISEASE STATES*

Abstract

Normal sera of several animal species possess tissue antibodies demonstrable by complement fixation with calf thymus or rabbit liver homogenates. Enhanced levels of these antibodies have been found in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and lues, and in animals experimentally infected with trypanosomes. They have not been observed in rheumatoid arthritis patients, in many infectious disease patients, or in animals subjected to x-irradiation, burns and injection of large amounts of vaccines. Coincidentally, the results have suggested that antibody levels against tissue homogenates may afford a more reliable index of overt or incipient autoimmune disease than Wassermann antibody. Lastly, the presence of these tissue antibodies in high titer in apparently normal healthy individuals lends additional credence to the concept that autoantibodies are not exclusively involved in the pathological findings of the so-called autoimmune diseases.