Immunochemical Study On Anti-keratin Autoantibody In Normal Human Serum, Construction Of Naive Human IgG Phage Display Repertoire And Preliminary Selection Of Anti-keratin Phage Antibodies

It has been proved that there exist a large pool of autoantibodies in normal humans and animals. These antibodies are termed natural autoantibodies, or briefly, NAAs, to be distinguishable from pathologically ocurring autoantibodies. Characterized by low affinity and polyreactivity, are generally encoded by germline genes with no or few somatic mutations. Amongst NAAs themselves a network structure is formed by idiotype-antiidiotype interactions. A spectrum of normal functions have been attributed to NAAs, including the maintenace of homeostasis of the organism, immune regulation, resistance to infection, catalytic activity, and transport of biologically active molecules. The discovery of NAAs is theoretically significant in providing a challenge to the traditionally accepted "clonal selection theory". They are also clinically significant, for alterations in NAAs are closely related to a number of diseases.In recent years, the molecular study of human autoantibodies have been greatly facilitated by the introduction of antibody repertoire cloning technology. Increasing numbers of disease-associated autoantibodies, such as antibodies to dsDNA, thyroglobulin, thyroid peroxidase, acetylcholine receptor, have been cloned and characterized by combinatorial repertoire cloning approach. Such studies are providing new insights into the gene usage, epitopic recognition, conformational structure of autoantibodies, and many other untouched problems in autoimmunology.