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Endemic Autoimmunity: Cold Auto-agglutinins in Melanesia |
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| Authors: | A Baumgarten C C Curtain T Golab J G Gorman C Kidson Carol F Rutgers |
| Institution: | The School of Pathology, University of New South Wales, Kensington, N.S.W., Australia.;The Baker Medical Research Institute, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.;The Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, U.S.A.;New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, New York, U.S.A.;Present address: C.S.I.R.O. Animal Health Research Laboratory, Private Bag No. 1, Parkville 3052, Victoria, Australia.;Present address: Department of Molecular Genetics, Syntex Institute of Hormone Biology, Palo Alto, California, U.S.A. |
| Abstract: | Sera from two Melanesian populations, one living at sea level and the other at 7000 feet, were examined for the incidence, strength and specificity of cold agglutinins. The cold auto-agglutination incidence ranged from 48 to 90 per cent for the sea-level group to 94 per cent for the highlanders. Titres of the sera ranged from 10 to 640. The specificity of the antibodies was in the main anti-I, although four probable examples of anti-AI, four examples of anti-I The light chain types of 160 of 200 cold agglutinins tested were both k and λ, 24 were K only and 16 were λ only. Fingerprints of the H chains of six New Guinea cold agglutinins showed some peptide spots missing compared with normal IgM, but more spots were present than in a lymphoma cold agglutinin, suggesting that the cold agglutinins represented a heterogeneous population of antibodies. No obvious relationship was found between environmental factors and the occurrence of the cold agglutinins. |
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