Autoimmune epilepsy: distinct subpopulations of epilepsy patients harbor serum autoantibodies to either glutamate/AMPA receptor GluR3, glutamate/NMDA receptor subunit NR2A or double-stranded DNA.
We studied 82 patients with different types of epilepsy and 49 neurologically intact non-epileptic controls, and identified three different subpopulations of epilepsy patients bearing significantly elevated levels of autoantibodies to either GluR3B-peptide of glutamate/AMPA receptor subtype 3 (17/82; 21% of patients), or to a peptide of NR2A subunit of glutamate/NMDA receptors (15/82; 18%), or to double-stranded (ds) DNA, the hallmark of systemic lupus erythematosus (13/80; 16%). Most patients had only one antibody type, arguing against cross-reactivity. Nearly all anti-dsDNA Ab-positive patients did not harbor anti-nuclear autoantibodies. Most patients had no history of brain damage, febrile convulsions, early onset epilepsy, acute epilepsy or intractable seizures. We suggest to measure the 'autoimmune-fingerprints' of epilepsy patients for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.
Department of Neurobiology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Yonatan
Y
Ganor
Hadassa
H
Goldberg-Stern
Tally
T
Lerman-Sagie
Vivian I
VI
Teichberg
Mia
M
Levite
D000293:Adolescent; D034961:Antigens, Nuclear / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000097:blood*; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000276:immunology*; D002648:Child; D004247:DNA / Q000276:immunology*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000097:blood / Q000145:classification / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D018091:Receptors, AMPA / Q000276:immunology*; D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate / Q000276:immunology*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
D034961:Antigens, Nuclear; D001323:Autoantibodies; C120997:NR2A NMDA receptor; D018091:Receptors, AMPA; D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate; C104723:glutamate receptor ionotropic, AMPA 3; D004247:DNA