Immunological features of idiopathic Addison's disease: an antibody to cells producing steroid hormones.

Antibodies to adrenocortical cells, occurring in the serum of patients with idiopathic Addison's disease, were investigated by the indirect immunofluorescence technique. With selected human adrenal tissue obtained post mortem, staining was brightest in the innermost cells of the adrenal cortex. Strongly positive sera were observed to react with all thirty specimens of adrenal tissue examined, but lipid-depleted adrenocortical tissue provided the most suitable reagent for detecting weak antibody. Immunofluorescence tests upon twenty positive sera, using a wide range of human tissues, revealed in one serum an antibody, or antibodies, which reacted with all types of cells producing steroid hormones, namely testicular Leydig cells, hilus cells of the ovary and testis, theca interna and corpus luteal cells of the ovary, and placental trophoblast. A second, weaker example of `steroid-cell antibody' was detected among the twenty sera. The significance of steroid-cell antibody is discussed briefly in relation to steroid hormone biosynthesis and gonadal failure in idiopathic Addison's disease.