A cerebellar degeneration-related protein 2-like cell-based assay for anti-Yo detection in patients with paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration.

Background And Purpose: Commercially available tests for Yo antibody detection have low specificity for paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration (PCD) because these assays use cerebellar degeneration-related protein 2 (CDR2) as the antigen, not CDR2-like (CDR2L). We aimed to test the hypothesis that use of a CDR2L cell-based assay (CBA), as an additional screening technique, would increase the accuracy of Yo-PCD diagnosis.

Methods: An in-house CBA to test for anti-CDR2L antibodies was developed and used to screen sera from 48 patients with confirmed anti-Yo-associated PCD.