Autoantibodies to intermediate filaments in acute viral hepatitis A, B and non-A, non-B are directed against vimentin.

Using ELISA and immunoblotting, autoantibodies to vimentin were sought in sera from 10 patients with acute hepatitis A, 10 with acute hepatitis B, 13 with acute non-A, non-B hepatitis, 16 with autoimmune chronic active hepatitis, 17 with cytomegalovirus infection and 40 from healthy persons. The ELISA results were expressed as a percentage of the value obtained with a monoclonal antibody to vimentin. The results (mean and SD) for acute hepatitis A (51.2 +/- 21.7%), acute hepatitis B (44.5 +/- 28.2%) and acute hepatitis non-A, non-B (43.0 +/- 16.4%) were significantly (p less than 0.01) higher than those for autoimmune chronic active hepatitis (20.5 +/- 7.7%), cytomegalovirus infection (25.9 +/- 12.2%) and healthy controls (16.8 +/- 9.3%). Immunoblotting showed that sera from patients with acute viral hepatitis reacted with 57 kd vimentin in triton-cytoskeletal extracts of fibroblasts. These results show that autoantibodies to vimentin are present in sera from patients with acute hepatitis A, B and non-A, non-B. Antivimentin autoantibodies may be useful in the diagnosis of acute non-A, non-B hepatitis.