title: Familial studies on the occurrence of natural autoantibodies.
abstract: Natural autoantibodies are often incidentally found in healthy individuals who are not first-degree relatives of known patients with autoimmune diseases. In an attempt to examine whether there exists a familial tendency in the production of such natural autoantibodies, 134 healthy members of 32 families were examined for antibodies against ss-DNA, ds-DNA, poly (I), poly (G), cardiolipin, histones, Sm, RNP, SS-A (Ro) and SS-B (La), using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Only 16 of the 134 subjects (11.9%) were found to possess autoantibodies in their sera in a titer exceeding the mean by 3 SD, and none of the 'positive' subjects were related. We conclude that in contrast to the familial occurrence of the autoantibodies of first-degree relatives of patients with autoimmune disease, there is no familial tendency in the occurrence of natural autoantibodies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University, Soroka Medical Center, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Yadin
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sarov
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Naggan
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shoenfeld
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics*; D002648:Child; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011897:Random Allocation
chemical_list: D001323:Autoantibodies