The Open Autoimmunity Journal

2012, 4 : 1-3
Published online 2012 August 24. DOI: 10.2174/1876894601204010001
Publisher ID: TOAUTOJ-4-1

Immunoblot Assay is Still Useful For the Serological Diagnosis of Autoimmune Bullous Dermatosis

D. Bertin , C. Leonnet , P. Berbis , D. Gilbert , M. A. Richard , F. Carsuzaa , J. J. Grob and S. Desplat-Jego
Laboratoire d'Immunologie – Pole de Biologie – Hopital de la Conception 147, Bd Baille – 13005 Mar-seille – France.

ABSTRACT

The detection of autoantibodies to epidermal or basement membrane zone proteins by immunoblot (IB) is use-ful for the diagnosis and the classification of autoimmune bullous diseases (AIBD). IB using human skin extracts is actu-ally the reference method but A431 cell line is proposed as easier alternate antigen source.

We explored the performances of “A431 IB” in comparison with the reference technique in retrospectively selected pa-tients suffering from well-established bullous pemphigoid (n=42) or pemphigus vulgaris (n=15) and controls (n=80) in or-der to determine the validity and interest of this simplified IB method.

We demonstrated that in our selected population A431 IB performances are comparable to the reference IB. IB remains semi-quantitative and time-consuming but much more economical and informative than commercially available ELISAs. We support the contention that, in 2012, IB, especially A431 IB, is still useful for the serological diagnosis of AIBD.

Keywords:

Autoimmune bullous dermatosis, immunoblot, A431 cell line.