title: Co-occurrence of autoantibodies in healthy blood donors.
abstract: Autoimmune diseases are rare, but their incidence has increased over the past decades. Interestingly, the co-occurrence of autoimmune diseases is well documented; however, data on the presence of more than one specific autoantibody in healthy individuals are not available. Here, we investigated the prevalence of several autoantibodies in a cohort of over 6000 healthy persons. While individual autoantibodies were rarely detected (i.e. ranging from 0.3% for ANCA to 4.6% for anti-TPO), the cumulative prevalence of the tested autoantibodies was as high as 10%. Furthermore, our results demonstrate co-occurrence of ANA with specific autoantibodies that target TPO, CCP and Dsg1/3, while ANCA and autoantibodies to PCA and BP180/BP230 were not more frequent in ANA-positive compared to ANA-negative samples. This indicates that shared and independent mechanisms influence loss of tolerance to distinct sets of self-antigens.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.
authors.forename: Jasper
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Prüßmann
authors.forename: Wiebke
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Prüßmann
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Recke
authors.forename: Kristin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rentzsch
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Juhl
authors.forename: Reinhard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Henschler
authors.forename: Susen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lamprecht
authors.forename: Enno
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Csernok
authors.forename: Siegfried
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Görg
authors.forename: Winfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Stöcker
authors.forename: Detlef
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zillikens
authors.forename: Saleh M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Ibrahim
authors.forename: Ralf J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Ludwig
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D019268:Antibodies, Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic / Q000276:immunology; D000974:Antibodies, Antinuclear / Q000276:immunology; D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000097:blood*; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000276:immunology*; D001782:Blood Donors; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D019268:Antibodies, Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic; D000974:Antibodies, Antinuclear; D001323:Autoantibodies
keywords: autoantibodies; autoimmune disease; autoimmunity; blood donor; health