Serological comparison of systemic lupus erythematosus with neuropsychiatric lupus using synthetic nucleic acid antigens

Sangita Khatri; Nikos Psaraftis; Alessia Funaro; Yoshiyuki Arinuma; Yuichiro Fujieda; Simone Mader; Christian Damsgaard Jørgensen; Kira Astakhova

doi:10.1016/j.jtauto.2020.100068

Serological comparison of systemic lupus erythematosus with neuropsychiatric lupus using synthetic nucleic acid antigens

J Transl Autoimmun. 2020 Oct 28:3:100068. doi: 10.1016/j.jtauto.2020.100068. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Sangita Khatri¹, Nikos Psaraftis¹, Alessia Funaro¹, Yoshiyuki Arinuma², Yuichiro Fujieda³, Simone Mader⁴, Christian Damsgaard Jørgensen⁵, Kira Astakhova¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark, 207 Kemitorvet, 2800, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.
² Department of Rheumatology and Infectious Diseases, Kitasato University School of Medicine, 1-15-1, Minamiku, Kitasato, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, 252-0374, Japan.
³ Department of Rheumatology, Endocrinology and Nephrology, Faculty of Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
⁴ Institute of Clinical Neuroimmunology, Biomedical Center and University Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Martinsried, Germany.
⁵ Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Southern Denmark, 5230, Odense M, Denmark.

Abstract

Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus is an autoimmune disorder characterized by an irregular exchange between the central nervous system and the immune system, leading to the outbreak of neurological conditions with possible disabling effects. Although neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus is the most common expression of lupus condition, it is still poorly understood. In this study, we focus on the development of an advantageous method based on the application of synthetic nucleic acids and protein-based antigen arrays in order to characterize autoreactive antibodies in neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus. We confirmed the benefits of using synthetic oligonucleotides such as assay reproducibility, elevated affinity and specificity to autoreactive antibodies. We also demonstrated presence of autoantibodies towards three particular synthetic double stranded antigens and verify similarity of antinuclear antibody patterns in ordinary lupus and neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus.

Keywords: Autoreactive antibodies; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent assay; Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus; Oligonucleotides; Synthetic Antigens.