Evaluation of Autoantibodies in patients with Systemic Sclerosis

Systemic sclerosis is an autoimmune disease clinically characterized by vascular and immune dysfunction, leading to fibrosisthat can damage multiple organs. The presence of non-overlapping SSc-associated autoantibodies best presents the autoimmunenature of systemic sclerosis. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the autoantibody profile in Iranian patientswith systemic sclerosis. Sera from 481 patients with systemic sclerosis were collected from 2013 to 2016. Levels of anti-nuclearantibodies (ANA) were quantitatively detected using the indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) method, and levels of specificautoantibodies including anti-topoisomerase I antibody (ATA), anti-centromere antibody (ACA) and anti RNA polymerase IIIantibody (anti-RNAP III) were determined qualitatively using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique.Among all patients evaluated, a predominance of females (86.7%) was found, and 434 (90.2%) patients showed positive ANAresults by IIF. ANA was detected in 87.3% and 92.0% of limited cutaneous systemic sclerosis (lcSSc) and diffuse cutaneoussystemic sclerosis (dcSSc) patients, respectively, which was not significantly different. The frequency of anti-RNAP III, ACA,and ATA was 5.19%, 6.09%, and 72.3%, respectively. Furthermore, anti-RNAP III, ATA, and ANA levels were correlated withdcSSc, whereas ACA levels were correlated with lcSSc. It was confirmed that ATA expression is significantly higher in dcSScpatients. This study had a lower frequency of ACA (6.09%) than most previous cohorts. The results demonstrated that theclinical subtype of systemic sclerosis may correlate positively with the presence of specific autoantibodies.

کلیدواژه ها:

systemic sclerosis ، autoantibody ، Anti-Nuclear Antibody ، anti-topoisomerase I antibody ، anti-centromere antibody ، anti RNA polymerase III antibody