IgA and IgG antibodies against gliadin in healthy blood donors and its relation to gluten enteropathy

Abstract

The prevalence of coeliac disease (CD) in Sweden is about 1/1000. Recently, CD has been shown in other clinical situations without typical gastrointestinal symptoms which makes it necesserary to use laboratory markers to select patients for biopsy. It has been established that untreated CD patients have circulating antibodies against subfractions of gliadin. Several immuno-assays have been developed to detect class-specific antibodies against gliadin but some controversy exist about the value of the antibody as a marker for CD. Since most people are exposed to this complex food antigen it is important to analyse the prescens of IgG- and IgA- antibodies against the antigen in a healthy population. We have developed a modified micro-ELISA assay for detection of class-specific anti-gliadin antibodies. Most studies are based on patients and a small group of apperently healthy blood donors. We have analysed the prescens of IgG- and IgA antibodies against the antigen in a large population of apperently healthy blood donors and compared the results with analyses of sera from 40 untreated CD-patients with clinical symptoms.