Comparison of measurements of anti-PLA2R antibodies in Japanese patients with membranous nephropathy using in-house and commercial ELISA
Abstract
Background
The prevalence of antibodies against M-type anti-phospholipase A2 receptor (PLA2R) was reported to be ~ 70–80% in early studies on idiopathic membranous nephropathy (iMN) cohorts from Western countries, China, and Korea, and ~ 50% in recent studies on two Japanese iMN cohorts.
Methods
We developed an in-house enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of anti-PLA2R antibodies, and examined sera from 217 patients with iMN, 22 patients with secondary MN (sMN), and 50 healthy individuals. All patients and healthy individuals were Japanese. The relationships between levels of anti-PLA2R antibodies and clinical parameters were analyzed. Serum samples were also tested using a standardized commercial ELISA (Euroimmun, Germany).
Results
In our ELISA, OD values greater than the mean + 3 standard deviation of healthy subjects were considered to be positive for anti-PLA2R antibodies. Of the patients with iMN, 33.6% (73/217) were positive, but all sMN patients were negative. Our ELISA and the Euroimmun ELISA had a high concordance (93.5%). The proportion of patients with nephrotic syndrome was significantly higher in anti-PLA2R antibody-positive patients than in antibody-negative patients (65.8 vs. 37.5%, P < 0.001). Levels of anti-PLA2R antibodies were significantly correlated with levels of urinary protein and serum albumin (P = 0.004 and P < 0.001, respectively).
Conclusions
The prevalence of anti-PLA2R antibodies in our Japanese iMN cohort was lower than that in the previous studies from other countries and other Japanese institutes. The low prevalence of antibodies may be related with the characteristics of enrolled patients with mild proteinuria and undetectable antibody levels.
Keywords
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay Japanese cohort Membranous nephropathy M-type phospholipase A2 receptorNotes
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by a research grant from Cosmic Corporation, Tokyo, Japan.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest
All the authors have declared no competing interests.
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee at which the studies were conducted (IRB approval number 1026), and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Supplementary material
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