Autoantibodies in Burkitt's lymphoma patients from the Ugandan prospective study

Pre- and post syndrome sera from five Burkitt's lymphoma patients who partook in the Ugandan prospective study (A. Geser et al., Int. J. Cancer 29 (1982) 397-400) were investigated with respect to autoantibodies. Neighbours and siblings of these patients served as controls and all of these groups were compared with sera from 50 Caucasian normal controls (CNC). Antibody levels significantly higher than those in CNC were found in all African groups for actin, desmin, vimentin, tubulin, keratin, laminin, and collagen type I. Polyclonal B-cell activation, as measured by antibodies to DNP, and high levels of antibodies to P. falciparum were also found. Anti-DNP and antibodies to malaria were also present in sera from our earlier study on Burkitt's lymphoma (E. Vainio et al., Clin. exp. Immunol. 54 (1983) 387-396). Whereas EBV infected B cells do produce autoantibodies, there is a potentiation of autoantibody formation as a result of infection with malaria, which seems to provide an independent trigger of polyclonal B cell activation. This latter event might be one of the factors which results in a correlation of Burkitt's lymphoma with malaria endemic regions.