Evaluation of an autoimmune type antibody in the sera of patients with Chagas' disease.

Utilizing cryostat sections of mouse heart as antigen, antibodies in the sera of patients with Chagas' disease were investigated for autoimmune-type interation. Sera from 47 normal, 70 patients with various contagious diseases, 116 sera from persons with leishmaniasis, and 90 from persons with Chagas' disease were evaluated. Antibodies in 44% of the sera tested from persons from Chile with xenodiagnostically proven infections of Chagas' disease showed antibodies that interacted with the heart sections of 65 sera from Brazil, 29 were positive by the complement fixation test, and 25 of these reacted with the heart sections. Of the 116 leishmania sera, 24 (20.7%) were reactive in the test. A second type of staining of heart tissue reported for patients with leishmaniasis was observed in 23 sera from patients with this disease and 34 sera from patients with syphilis, rheumatic fever, and malaria. This reaction was not observed in normal sera or in sera from patients with Chagas' disease.