IgG antibodies from patients with bullous pemphigoid bind to localized epitopes on synthetic peptides encoded by bullous pemphigoid antigen cDNA.

Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is an autoimmune blistering disease characterized in part by the presence of tissue-bound and circulating antibodies specific for basement membrane zone proteins, the BP Ag. The purpose of the present study was to determine seroreactivity of patients with BP to six nonoverlapping synthetic peptides representing sequences in the carboxyl domain of the recently cloned 230-kDa BP Ag. Sera from 40 patients with BP, 57 normal subjects, and 18 patients with other autoimmune blistering skin diseases were examined in an ELISA for binding to six synthetic peptides varying between 17 and 19 amino acids in length. The binding of IgG from patients with BP to three synthetic peptides, P1-2, P1-1, and P3-1, was significantly different from that seen in the normal controls (p less than 0.001, Fisher's exact test). Affinity-purified anti-P1-2 antibody from a patient with BP bound in a characteristic linear band to the epidermal side of 1 M NaCl split skin and immunoprecipitated the native 230-kDa BP Ag. Serum IgG antibodies from a rabbit immunized with a BP fusion protein that contains the sequences for P1-1 and P1-2, bound on ELISA to P1-2 but not to P1-1. These data suggest that multiple epitopes on the 230-kDa BP Ag are recognized by circulating autoantibodies in patients with this disease, and that an epitope encoded within the synthetic peptide P1-2 is expressed on the native molecule and may be relevant in the generation of an immune response both in man and in an animal model.