Aspects des anticorps antinucléaires surles cellules HEp-2

The gold standard for the detection of antinuclear antibodies(ANA) is the indirect immunofluorescence assay. (IIF) using HEp-2 cells. The quality of the screening is highly dependent on the chosen slides, the used anti-immunoglobulin and the subjective reading. Several nuclear fluorescence patterns can be observed, either in the nucleoplasm (homogen, speckled or nucleolar) or on the mitotic apparatus. The most frequent ANA (anti-DNA, anti-ribonucleoproteins…) and their typical fluorescence patterns are described. Depending on the different fluorescence patterns. second level assays can be selected to identify the target antigens. Determining the antigen specificity of ANA and their titers are important steps towards the diagnosis of systemic auto-immune diseases and their monitoring since some ANA are dramatically linked to some connective tissue diseases. Nevertheless it is well known that healthy people, or patients with many other non autoimmune diseases, sometimes have ANA at a low titer. Therefore, the diagnosis value of ANA determination heavily depends on the clinical presentation of any patient taking into account age and gender.