Abstract
Takayasu arteritis (TA) is difficult to diagnose because diagnostic biomarkers have not yet been established. In a previous study, we detected autoantibodies against the human ferritin heavy chain protein (HFC) in the sera of patients with giant cell arteritis (GCA) and/or polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR). The aim of this study is to evaluate the frequency of autoantibodies against HFC in TA. We established seven ELISA assays for the detection of autoantibodies against HFC. We used the full-length recombinant HFC expressed in Escherichia coli or one of six different HFC peptides as autoantigens: 1-18Aa (98.8 % purity), 19-45Aa (98.8 % purity), 52-78Aa (98.3 % purity), 79-104Aa (98.8 % purity), 105-143Aa (98.4 % purity) and 145-183Aa (98.5 % purity). We collected sera from 48 patients with TA, 36 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), 35 patients with arteriosclerosis, 133 patients with febrile diseases, which are known to generate unspecific autoantibodies, and 50 blood donors, which served as controls. The best results were obtained using the ferritin peptides as antigens. By combining the results from the different ELISAs that detect autoantibodies against the HFC peptides 19-44A, 79-104A and 105-144A, we were able to detect ferritin peptide antibodies in 30/48 (62 %) of the TA patients. The frequency was lower than in early GCA and PMR (previous study showed up to 92 %). Positive results were observed in 0/50 (0 %) of the control blood donors, 10/36 (28 %) of the SLE patients, 4/35 (11 %) of the arteriosclerosis patients and 27/133 (20 %) of the fever patients. Considering the lack of biomarkers for TA, autoantibodies against HFC peptides could act as useful markers for TA.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Hall S, Barr W, Lie JT, Stanson AW, Kazmier FJ, Hunder GG (1985) Takayasu arteritis. A study of 32 North American patients. Medicine (Baltimore) 64(2):89–99
Lupi-Herrera E, Sánchez-Torres G, Marcushamer J, Mispireta J, Horwitz S, Vela JE (1977) Takayasu’s arteritis. Clinical study of 107 cases. Am Heart J 93(1):94–103
Jain S, Sharma N, Singh S, Bali HK, Kumar L, Sharma BK (2000) Takayasu arteritis in children and young Indians. Int J Cardiol 75(1):153–157
Strachan RW (1964) The natural history of Takayasu’s arteriopathy. Q J Med 33:57
Numano F, Kishi Y, Tanaka A, Ohkawara M, Kakuta T, Kobayashi Y (2000) Inflammation and atherosclerosis. Atherosclerotic lesions in Takayasu arteritis. Ann NY Acad Sci 902:65–76
Bearlecken NT, Linnemann A, Gross WL, Moosig F, Vazqzez-Rodroguez TR, Gonzalez-Gay M, et al (2012) Association of ferritin autoantibodies with giant cell arteritis/polymyalgia rheumatica. Ann Rheum Dis [Epub ahead of print]
Seko Y (2007) Giant cell and Takayasu arteritis. Curr Opin Rheumatol 19(1):39–43
Gonzalez-Gay MA, Barros S, Lopez-Diaz MJ, Garcia-Porrua C, Sanchez-Andrade A, Llorca J et al (2005) Giant cell arteritis. Disease patterns of clinical presentation in a series of 240 patients. Medicine (Baltimore) 84:269–276
Cantini F, Niccoli L, Storri L, Nannini C, Olivieri I, Padula A et al (2004) Are polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis the same disease? Semin Arthritis Rheum 33:294–301
Arend WP, Michel BA, Bloch DA, Hunder GG, Calabrese LH, Edworthy SM et al (1990) The American College of Rheumatology 1990 criteria for the classification of Takayasu arteritis. Arthritis Rheum 33:1129–1134
Tan EM, Cohen AS, Fries JF (1982) The 1982 revised criteria for the classification of systemic lupus erythematosus. Arthritis Rheum 25(11):1271–1277
Czihall M, Förster S, Hoffmann U (2010) Imaging diagnostics of large vessel vasculitis. Radiologe 50:855–860
Hoffmann GS, Ahmed AE (1998) Surrogate markers of disease activity in patients with Takayasu arteritis. A preliminary report from The International Network for the Study of the Systemic Vasculitides (INSSYS). Int J Cardiol 66(1):191–194
Park MC, Lee SW, Park YB, Lee SK (2006) Serum cytokine profiles and their correlations with disease activity in Takayasu’s arteritis. Rheumatology 45:545–548
Park MC, Park YB, Jung SY, Lee KH, Lee S (2006) Anti-endothelial cell antibodies and antiphospholipid antibodies in Takayasu’s arteritis: correlations of their titers and isotype distributions with disease activity. Clin Exp Rheumatol 24(41):S10–S16
Servettaz A, Guilpain P, Camoin L, Mayeux P, Broussard C, Tamby MC et al (2008) Identification of target antigens of antiendothelial cell antibodies in healthy individuals: A proteomic approach. Proteomics 8(5):1000–1008
Navarro M, Cervera R, Font J, Reverter JC, Monteagudo J, Escolar G et al (1997) Anti-endothelial cell antibodies in systemic autoimmune diseases: prevalence and clinical significance. Lupus 6:521–526
Misra R, Aggarwal A, Chag M, Sinha N, Shrivastava S (1994) Raised anticardiolipin antibodies in Takayasu’s arteritis. Lancet 343:1644–1645
Tripathy NK, Sinha N, Nityanand S (2003) Anti-annexin V antibodies in Takayasu’s arteritis: prevalence and relationship with disease activity. Clin Exp Immunol 134:360–364
Chauhan SK, Tripathy NK, Sinha N, Singh M, Nityanand S (2004) Cellular and humoral immune responses to mycobacterial heat shock protein-65 and its human homologue in Takayasu’s arteritis. Clin Exp Immunol 138:547–553
Source of support
This study was supported by the DFG KFO 250.
Conflict of interest
None.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Große, K., Witte, T., Moosig, F. et al. Association of ferritin antibodies with Takayasu arteritis. Clin Rheumatol 33, 1523–1526 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-014-2764-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-014-2764-2