Anti-Ku antibodies: Clinical, genetic and diagnostic insights

Anti-Ku antibodies are reported in various connective tissue diseases and the Ku complex can be responsible for a very strong autoimmune answer in autoimmune disease. Nowadays, anti-Ku antibodies are detected by ELISA, counterimmunoelectrophoresis (CIE), immunoblot (IB) and new highly performant techniques. Although the prevalence of anti-Ku antibodies is not homogenous, depending on several features such as disease type, genetic and geographical clustering, and also method of detection, they could be found in 55% overlap PM/systemic sclerosis patients. Moreover, anti-Ku antibodies are not associated with a particular clinical outcome, and especially with cancer related to myositis.