Tienilic acid-induced autoimmune hepatitis: anti-liver and-kidney microsomal type 2 autoantibodies recognize a three-site conformational epitope on cytochrome P4502C9.

Tienilic acid-induced hepatitis is characterized by the presence of anti-liver and -kidney microsomal (anti-LKM2) autoantibodies in patient sera. Cytochrome P4502C9(CYP2C9), involved in the metabolism of tienilic acid, was shown to be a target for tienilic acid-reactive metabolites and for autoantibodies. To further investigate the relationship between drug metabolism and the pathogenesis of this drug-induced autoimmune disease, the specificity of anti-LKM2 autoantibodies toward CYP2C9 was first determined, and the antigenic sites on CYP2C9 were localized. By constructing several deletion mutants derived from CYP2C9 cDNA and by probing the corresponding proteins with different anti-LKM2 sera, we defined three regions (amino acids 314-322, 345-356, and 439-455); they interacted to form a major conformational autoantibody binding site. This binding site was immunoreactive with 100% of sera and allowed removal of the entire reactivity of the sera tested by immunoblotting. Epitope mapping studies have been performed for CYP2D6, CYP17, CYP21A2, and, recently, CYP3A. Those data were compared with the results obtained in the current study with CYP2C9 in an attempt to elucidate one of the mechanisms by which CYP becomes immunogenic.