The speckled immunofluorescence of epidermal nuclei as an in vivo phenomenon.

The deposition of speckled-patterned immunoglobulins in epidermal nuclei has been investigated in seventeen patients with various diseases other than mixed connective tissue disease. The phenomenon was seen not only with low titres of circulating antinuclear antibodies of IgG and IgM classes, but even in their absence. The clinical significance of this finding remains obscure, but the common explanation, that it is a simple artifact, seems quite untenable.