Antibodies to natural double-stranded RNA and to synthetic polyribonucleotides in the sera of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

A parallel testing of antibodies to double-stranded ribonucleic acid in 80 sera from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus by the membrane binding method using natural 3H-dsRNA preparation and synthetic 125I-poly I. poly C preparation revealed a good correlation (r = +0.81). In a selected set of patients with SLE we observed a slight tendency to preferential binding of the natural preparation and a lower frequency of anti-dsRNA antibodies when compared to that reported by other investigators. The presence of anti-dsRNA did not correlate with the presence of anti-dsDNA.