Recognition and Relevance of Anti-DFS70 Autoantibodies in Routine Antinuclear Autoantibodies Testing at a Community Hospital.

Antinuclear autoantibodies (ANA) displaying a dense fine speckled pattern (DFS, ICAP AC-2) on HEp-2 cells are frequently observed in clinical laboratory referrals, often associated with anti-DFS70 specificity. Anti-DFS70 positive patients rarely develop systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease (SARD), especially in the absence of clinical evidence or additional anti-extractable nuclear antigen (ENA) antibodies, prompting suggestions that an isolated DFS70-specific ENA may be an exclusionary finding for SARD. In this study, the frequency and diagnostic significance of anti-DFS70 autoantibodies was investigated in a community hospital cohort of patients undergoing routine ANA testing.

Symptomatic hypercalcemia in a patient with chronic tophaceous gout: a case report.

Hypercalcemia has been widely associated with granulomatous processes. This is due to enhanced extra-renal conversion of calcidiol to calcitriol by activated macrophages within the granuloma. Symptomatic hypercalcemia due to granulomatous disorders is not common, with the incidence in sarcoidosis ranging from 10-20%.

Alveolar hemorrhage and pulmonary hypertension in systemic sclerosis: a continuum of scleroderma renal crisis?

Alveolar hemorrhage occurs as a complication of systemic inflammatory diseases. In addition to alveolar hemorrhage, patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) may suffer from digital infarction, pulmonary hypertension, and renal crisis. Although a common pathogenesis of this disease that explains the variety of problems during a patient's illness has yet to be identified, the unique characteristics of SSc may alter our approach to alveolar hemorrhage in this patient population.

Enhanced and sustained activation of human B cells by anti-immunoglobulin conjugated to the EBV glycoprotein gp350.

We coupled a monoclonal anti-human IgD to the gp350 gylcoprotein of Epstein-Barr virus, which has been shown to bind to the complement receptor 2 (CR2), and compared its B cell stimulatory ability to that of anti-Ig and to a multivalent anti-Ig-dextran conjugate. The anti-Ig-gp350 conjugate stimulated higher levels of human B cell proliferation in vitro than did anti-Ig or anti-Ig conjugated to control viral protein, comparable to the proliferation stimulated by the multivalent anti-Ig-dextran. This enhanced proliferation was dependent on binding of the conjugate to CR2, inasmuch as an anti-CD2 antibody blocked the enhanced proliferative response.

Multivalent cross-linking of membrane Ig sensitizes murine B cells to a broader spectrum of CpG-containing oligodeoxynucleotide motifs, including their methylated counterparts, for stimulation of proliferation and Ig secretion.

We have previously reported that B cells that are activated by multivalent but not bivalent membrane Ig cross-linking ligands synergize with various B cell activators culminating in enhanced B cell proliferation. In this study we asked whether B cells that are activated by a multivalent mIg cross-linking agonist could respond to oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN) containing non-stimulatory motifs. Earlier reports have shown that ODN containing a CpG motif in which the cytosine is unmethylated and is flanked by two 5' purines and two 3' pyrimidines induce high levels of B cell activation, while ODN whose CpG are methylated or flanked by sequences other than the optimal two 5' purines and two 3' pyrimidines were non-stimulatory.