An investigation of the clonality of human autoimmune thyroglobulin antibodies and their light chains.

Thyroglobulin antibodies in the sera from 31 patients with a variety of disorders were studied by isoelectric focusing. Only one gave a spectrotype indicative of a monoclonal response, the other 30 giving spectrotypes characteristic of polyclonal responses. There was evidence of clonal dominance in some of the sera and each gave a different spectrotype. Light chains were prepared from five thyroglobulin antibodies purified by affinity chromatography. There was no restriction in the spectrotypes when compared with light chains prepared from normal immunoglobulin.