An "Autoimmune" Reaction Against Human Tissue Antigens in Certain Acute and Chronic Diseases

Abstract

The serum from a proportion of patients suffering from acute viral hepatitis, active chronic hepatitis, and other parenchymatous diseases of the liver, disseminated lupus erythematosus (D. L. E.) and other "collagen diseases"; macroglobulinemia and multiple myeloma, and certain other conditions has been shown by one of us^1,2to contain antibody-like substances which fix complement in the presence of human tissue homogenates. This reaction has been designated autoimmune complement fixation (AICF). This serum activity could represent an adventitious chemical reaction not evoked by any antecedent antigenic stimuli, and it may be impossible in any given case to exclude this. Nevertheless, such an explanation has none of the heuristic value of the autoantibody hypothesis, and for the reasons given by one of us²we have adopted the view that these substances are autoantibodies which have developed as a result of the pathological antigenicity of some human tissue component. For many years