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Comparison of measurements of anti-PLA2R antibodies in Japanese patients with membranous nephropathy using in-house and commercial ELISA

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Abstract

Background

The prevalence of antibodies against M-type anti-phospholipase A2 receptor (PLA2R) was reported to be ~ 70–80% in early studies on idiopathic membranous nephropathy (iMN) cohorts from Western countries, China, and Korea, and ~ 50% in recent studies on two Japanese iMN cohorts.

Methods

We developed an in-house enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of anti-PLA2R antibodies, and examined sera from 217 patients with iMN, 22 patients with secondary MN (sMN), and 50 healthy individuals. All patients and healthy individuals were Japanese. The relationships between levels of anti-PLA2R antibodies and clinical parameters were analyzed. Serum samples were also tested using a standardized commercial ELISA (Euroimmun, Germany).

Results

In our ELISA, OD values greater than the mean + 3 standard deviation of healthy subjects were considered to be positive for anti-PLA2R antibodies. Of the patients with iMN, 33.6% (73/217) were positive, but all sMN patients were negative. Our ELISA and the Euroimmun ELISA had a high concordance (93.5%). The proportion of patients with nephrotic syndrome was significantly higher in anti-PLA2R antibody-positive patients than in antibody-negative patients (65.8 vs. 37.5%, P < 0.001). Levels of anti-PLA2R antibodies were significantly correlated with levels of urinary protein and serum albumin (P = 0.004 and P < 0.001, respectively).

Conclusions

The prevalence of anti-PLA2R antibodies in our Japanese iMN cohort was lower than that in the previous studies from other countries and other Japanese institutes. The low prevalence of antibodies may be related with the characteristics of enrolled patients with mild proteinuria and undetectable antibody levels.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by a research grant from Cosmic Corporation, Tokyo, Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hematology, Nephrology, and Rheumatology, Akita University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-1-1 Hondo, Akita City, Akita, 010-8543, Japan

    Hajime Kaga, Atsushi Komatsuda & Naoto Takahashi

  2. Department of Microbiology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo City, Japan

    Soh Yamamoto & Shin-ichi Yokota

  3. Technical Support & Marketing Section, Sales Department, Cosmic Corporation, Tokyo, Japan

    Tadashi Kikuchi

  4. Department of Life Science, Akita University Graduate School of Engineering Science, Akita City, Japan

    Mika Kamata, Akiko Sato, Masafumi Odaka & Hideki Wakui

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  1. Hajime Kaga
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  2. Atsushi Komatsuda
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Correspondence to Atsushi Komatsuda.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee at which the studies were conducted (IRB approval number 1026), and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Kaga, H., Komatsuda, A., Yamamoto, S. et al. Comparison of measurements of anti-PLA2R antibodies in Japanese patients with membranous nephropathy using in-house and commercial ELISA. Clin Exp Nephrol 23, 465–473 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10157-019-01712-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10157-019-01712-x

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