[Heterogenicity of mitochondrial antibodies (author's transl)]

Sera from 137 patients with mitochondrial antibodies were tested against two different mitochondrial antigens. The mitochondrial antibodies from patients with pseudo-lupus erythematosus (PLE antigen) reacted exclusively with antigen which sedimented on moving-zone centrifugation at a density of 1.10, and contained no antigenic activity when tested against sera from patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC). Purified PBC antigen had no PLE antigen activity at a density of 1.19, and all sera from patients with autoimmune liver disease fixed complement with this fraction. Sera from 54 of 55 patients with PLE reacted with the antigen of the PLE-gradient fraction. But 71 patients with liver disease had no such uniform reaction: sera from 39 patients fixed complement only with the PBC fraction, whereas 32 reacted stimultaneously with both the 1.10 and 1.19 density gradient fraction. The latter pattern was especially found in patients with chronic active hepatitis in whom antibodies to smooth muscle and nuclei were frequently detected.