ABSTRACT
Antibodies to phospholipids appear to represent a diverse group of antibodies which may have important pathophysiological consequences in vivo. In particular, patients with autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) can develop high titers of these anti-phospholipid autoantibodies which primarily include: anti-DNA antibodies crossreactive with phospholipids; lupus anticoagulant antibodies; and anti-cardiolipin antibodies. The degree of overlap in antibodies detected by anti-cardiolipin solid phase assays and lupus anticoagulant assays is also not clear. It appears that in approximately 35% of SLE patients, the results of these assays do not correlate.6 This does not seem to be related to differences in sensitivity between the assay systems, since some patients are positive for anti-cardiolipin but not for lupus anticoagulant, while others are positive for lupus anticoagulant antibody and not for anti-cardiolipin antibodies. The availability of monoclonal antibodies which specifically recognize nonbilayer palmitoyloleoyl should provide the means to probe the existence of these structures in vivo.
