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Diagnostic value of antibodies to phosphatidylserine/prothrombin complex for antiphospholipid syndrome in Chinese patients

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Abstract

To evaluate the diagnosis value of antibodies to phosphatidylserine/prothrombin complex (aPS/PT) in patients with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) and to determine the clinical features of APS patients with avidity of aPS/PT. Serum samples were collected from 108 APS patients. Sixty patients with pregnancy morbidity, 37 patients with thrombosis without a history of autoimmune diseases, and 89 healthy blood donors were included as the control group. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test was performed to detect the concentration of aPS/PT, including IgG/M, IgG, and IgM forms, in the same serum sample. The chi-square (χ2) test was used to examine the difference of frequencies of antibodies in APS patients and patients with other diseases. Spearman correlation analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between aPS/PT and other clinical/laboratory parameters. aPS/PT was detectable in 68 (63.0%) of the 108 APS patients, 12 (13.2%) of the 91 disease control patients and 1 (1.1%) of the healthy controls. It was strongly correlated with the activity of lupus anticoagulant (LA) (OR 15.952, 95% CI 7.132–35.678; P < 0.001). The frequency of aPS/PT was 56.9% in anti-cardiolipid antibody (aCL)-negative, 60.5% anti-β2 glycoprotein I antibody (aβ2GPI)-negative, and 50.0% in both aCL and aβ2GPI negative APS patients. The IgG aPS/PT was significantly associated with arterial and venous thrombosis. The aPS/PT antibody could play an important role in the diagnosis of APS, especially in patients with negative aCL and aβ2GPI. It was positively related to thrombotic events in APS.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all the patients and healthy donors who took part in this study.

Author’s contributions

LZ: data collection, ELISA experiment and analysis, manuscript writing. CL: data collection, ELISA experiment and analysis, manuscript writing. NL: data collection, ELISA experiment and analysis, manuscript writing. XY: data collection. RLJ: data collection and ELISA experiment. RM: conception and design, manuscript writing, critical revision, final approval, and takes responsibility for the manuscript. YS and ZGL: concept and design. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Rong Mu.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 program, No. 2012CB517702) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31170840 and 81471536).

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Additional information

Lei Zhu and Chun Li contributed equally to this work.

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Zhu, L., Li, C., Liu, N. et al. Diagnostic value of antibodies to phosphatidylserine/prothrombin complex for antiphospholipid syndrome in Chinese patients. Clin Rheumatol 36, 401–406 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-016-3498-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-016-3498-0

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