1998 Volume 39 Issue 6 Pages 366-373
To detect the anti-liver/kidney microsome tyge 1 antibody (anti-LKM1), a novel enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) system was established utilizing the recombinant CYP2D6 antigen and its efficacy was evaluated. Total 432 sera were tested including 317 from patients with various liver diseases [14 from autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) type II, 218 from chronic viral hepatitis C (CH-C), etc.], 15 from patients without liver diseases and 100 sera from healthy blood donors. By indirect immunofluorescence (IIF), the anti-LKM1 was detected in all 14 sera (100.0%) from AIH type II patients and 7 (3.2%) out of 218 cases of CH-C patients. By ELISA, antibodies from AIH type II patients and CH-C patients that the anti-LKM1 was detected by IIF (CH-C/anti-LKM1+) showed significantly higher reactivity [AIH type II; p<0.0001, CH-C/anti-LKM1+; p<0.0001] . And only 14 cases from AIH type II patients and 7 cases from CH-C/anti-LKM1+ patients were shown to be positive for the anti-LKM1 by ELISA. The reactivity of the anti-LKM1 by ELISA and the IIF titer were also well correlated each other [AIH type II; r=0.883, p<0.001, CH-C/anti-LKM1+; r=0.927, p<0.005]. Furthermore, these results were confirmed by Western blot analysis. All patients positive for the anti-LKM1 by ELISA were also positive by Western blot. These results indicated that the established ELISA system was effective to detect the anti-LKM1 antibody in sera, from the standpoints of simplicity and mass-screening as well as quantitation.
