[Absence of anti double stranded DNA antibodies in viral hepatitis (author's transl)].

The presence of anti double stranded DNA antibodies (ds DNA Ab) in the sera of patients with acute viral hepatitis and B virus chronic active hepatitis has recently been described. In contrast with these results we found no ds DNA ab, but anti single stranded DNA antibodies (ss DNA ab) in the sera from patients with these diseases. The ds DNA ab were studied simultaneously by two methods: Immunofluorescence (IF) on crithidia luciliae and Farr test. In this later case it was shown that the ds DNA preparation contained no ss DNA because it did not react with an anti ss DNA rabbit serum. Our results indicate that the above mentioned authors have been using in their Farr test a preparation of ds DNA contaminated by ss DNA, thus revealing the presence of anti ss DNA ab but not anti ds DNA ab, in the sera of their patients. On the other hand the presence of ds DNA ab has been shown in the sera of 85% of the patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and of 20,5% of the patients with non EB chronic active hepatitis. At least one part of these later are probably autoimmune diseases.