[Achievements and prospects of clinical abzymology]

Catalytic autoantibodies (abzymes) are autoantibodies that are potentially ready to realize certain effects in the organism, first of all antibody-mediated catalysis and cytotoxicity. Natural abzymes with protolytic (protabzymes) and DNA-hydrolyzing DNA-abzymes) activity are of the greatest interest. The most impressive example of the catalytic activity of protabzymes is hydrolysis of specific proteins, revealed in patients with autoimmune diseases, such as bronchial asthma (vasoactive intestinal neuropeptide), autoimmune thyroiditis (thyroglobulin), multiple sclerosis (myelin basic protein), and autoimmune myocarditis (cardiomyosin). The pathogenic role of DNA-abzymes is not quite clear yet. However, it has been proven that they present a powerful regulator of apoptosis and other cytotoxicity mechanisms in systemic autoimmune diseases and tumors. The most promising is use of abzymes as illness activity markers, and as therapeutic agents capable of catalyzing specific proteins or activating antitumoral chemotherapeutic preparations.