Anti-salivary antibodies in primary Sjögren's syndrome

Earlier studies have described an antibody that recognized salivary ductal epithelium in sera from 15-50% of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome; however, the specific salivary antigen in those studies was not identified. The present study further investigated this unknown salivary antigen. Twenty-nine of 31 patients (94%) with primary Sjögren's syndrome demonstrated IgG antinuclear antibodies that bound to an epithelial cell line with ductal characteristics derived from a human salivary gland. Seventy-seven percent of these patients had serum antibodies that bound to ductal cells of normal human parotid tissue after formalin fixation. Western blots of cell extracts, immunofluorescence, and adsorption studies indicated that SS-A/Ro and SS-B/La were the antigens recognized in the salivary cell line. The pattern of fluorescence seen when anti-SS-B/La bound to normal parotid tissue was identical to the fluorescence pattern of the anti-salivary ductal antibodies described in earlier literature.