Objective: To determine the prevalence of organ-specific and non-specific autoantibodies in HIV-infected patients.
Design: A multicentric collaborative case-control study including 105 HIV patients and 100 sex- and age-matched HIV-negative healthy volunteers.
Methods: Antinuclear, anti-ds DNA, anti-histone, anti-Sm, rheumatoid factor(IgM), anti-beta 2 glycoprotein 1, antineutrophil cytoplasmic, anti-LKM1, anti-LCA1, anti-gastric parietal cell, antiplatelet, anti-intermediate filament, anti-mitotic spindle apparatus, anti-Golgi, anti-ribosome and anti-thyroid autoantibodies were screened in six European laboratories.
Results: Only IgG and IgM anticardiolipin, IgG antiplatelet, anti-smooth muscle and anti-thyroglobulin antibodies were statistically more frequent in HIV patients. There was no correlation with the numbers of CD4+ cells except in the case of anti-smooth muscle antibodies. We were unable to find specific autoantibodies such as anti-ds DNA, anti-Sm, AMA, anti-LKM1, anti-LCA1 or anti-beta 2 GP1 antibodies in these patients.
Conclusions: Our results indicate that the autoantibody profile of HIV infections is comparable to those of other chronic viral infections. HIV does not seem to be more autoimmunogenic than other viruses.