The presence of antibodies against extractable nuclear antigens in serum: a comparison of immunoblotting versus radial immunodiffusion.

A commercial immunoblotting kit has recently been introduced to determine auto-antibodies against extractable nuclear antigens. We compared this new test with radial immunodiffusion for its usefulness in the routine laboratory procedures of a general hospital. Antigen preparation in immunoblotting includes a protein denaturation step prior to electrophoretic separation of the different proteins. In this way antigenic determinants that depend heavily on the protein superstructure are lost. In theory, auto-antibodies against these epitopes may be missed. In our series of 100 samples that had tested positively for antinuclear antibodies, radial immunodiffusion was able to detect one SSA positive sample that was negative by immunoblotting. However, 47 samples positive in immunoblotting, 37 positive for UBP, seven for anti-SSA, are for anti-Jo-1, one for anti-RNP and one for anti-Sm were missed by radial immunodiffusion. Most of these samples had low antinuclear antibody titres (1/80 or 1/160).