Anti-idiotypic antibody against anti-DNA in sera of laboratory personnel exposed to lupus sera or nucleic acids.

We tested for anti-DNA, anti-idiotypic, antinuclear, and lymphocytotoxic antibodies in the sera of three groups of normals: volunteers never exposed to lupus sera or nucleic acids (group I), research personnel handling nucleic acids (group II), and laboratory personnel handling lupus sera (group III). There was no significant differences among the groups with respect to levels of either single stranded or double stranded anti-DNA. Group I showed no significant differences in binding to F(ab')2 fragments of lupus anti-DNA, lupus non-anti-DNA or normal IgG. Compared to group I, groups II and III bound significantly higher to anti-DNA F(ab')2 fragments compared to non-anti-DNA F(ab')2 or normal F(ab')2 fragments. Sera from the three groups were negative for antibodies and all but one individual from group III had normal antinuclear antibody titres. These results indicate that sera of normals exposed to lupus sera or to nucleic acids contain an anti-idiotype directed against anti-DNA antibody. The possible role of these anti-idiotypes in regulating the anti-DNA antibody is discussed.