Diversity of antinuclear antibody responses in hepatocellular carcinoma

The development of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) in malignancies has been described but its mechanism is still not understood. The aim of this study was to examine ANA specificities in hepatocellular carcinoma to further understand autoimmunity in cancer. Two hundred and four hepatocellular carcinoma...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of hepatology 1997-06, Vol.26 (6), p.1255-1265
Main Authors: COVINI, G, VON MOHLEN, C. A, PACCHETTI, S, COLOMBO, M, CHAN, E. K. L, TAN, E. M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Antibodies, Antinuclear - blood
Autoantibodies - blood
Biological and medical sciences
Carcinoma, Hepatocellular - blood
Carcinoma, Hepatocellular - immunology
Chromosomal Proteins, Non-Histone - immunology
Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay
Female
Gastroenterology. Liver. Pancreas. Abdomen
Hepatitis B - blood
Hepatitis B - immunology
Hepatitis B Surface Antigens - blood
Hepatitis C - blood
Hepatitis C - immunology
Hepatitis C Antibodies - blood
Humans
Liver Cirrhosis, Alcoholic - blood
Liver Cirrhosis, Alcoholic - immunology
Liver Neoplasms - blood
Liver Neoplasms - immunology
Liver. Biliary tract. Portal circulation. Exocrine pancreas
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Radioimmunoassay
Reference Values
Ribonucleoproteins - immunology
Tumors
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The development of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) in malignancies has been described but its mechanism is still not understood. The aim of this study was to examine ANA specificities in hepatocellular carcinoma to further understand autoimmunity in cancer. Two hundred and four hepatocellular carcinoma patients were compared with 68 chronic hepatitis C, with 126 chronic hepatitis B and with 30 alcoholic liver cirrhosis patients, as well as with 87 healthy donors. Indirect immunofluorescence, immunoblotting, and immunoprecipitation were used to study ANA reactivities. Hepatocellular carcinoma had a significantly higher frequency of ANA using HEp-2 cells as substrate (31%) than chronic hepatitis C (10%), chronic hepatitis B (9.5%), alcoholic liver cirrhosis (10%) or healthy donors (4.5%). A great diversity of ANA specificities was found in hepatocellular carcinoma. Three hepatoma sera had antibodies that co-localized with non-snRNP splicing factor SC35, suggesting that the antigenic targets might be involved in mRNA splicing. We identified antibodies to two known nuclear autoantigens: fibrillarin and p330d/CENP-F. These autoantigens are involved in the 5' processing of precursor ribosomal RNA transcripts and in mitotic functions, respectively. Diversity was found in the autoantibody specificity, in contrast to the specific subsets of autoantibodies seen in several systemic rheumatic autoimmune diseases. Our data suggest that immune response in hepatocellular carcinoma targets important proteins involved in cellular biosynthetic or proliferative functions.
ISSN:0168-8278
1600-0641
DOI:10.1016/S0168-8278(97)80460-6