Serum carbonic anhydrase I and II autoantibodies in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia

Cancer is the second most important cause of mortality, and millions of people either have or have had the disease. Leukaemia is one of the most common forms of cancer. Autoantibodies that have developed against the organism’s self-antigens are detected in the sera of subjects with cancer. In recent years carbonic anhydrase (CA) autoantibodies have been determined in some autoimmune diseases and carcinomas, but the mechanisms underlying this immune response have not yet been fully explained. The purpose of this study was to determine CA I and II autoantibodies in subjects with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) and to provide a novel perspective regarding the autoimmune basis of the disease. Autoantibody levels were investigated using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in serum samples from 37 patients with CLL and 37 healthy peers. Anti-CA I titres in the CLL group were significantly higher compared with the control group (p = 0.0001). However, there was no significant difference between CLL and control groups in terms of anti-CA II titres (p = 0.278). The prevalences of CA I and II autoantibodies in patients with CLL in this study were 27% and 24.3%, respectively. Our results suggest that these autoantibodies may be involved in the pathogenesis of CLL. More extensive studies are now needed to reveal the entire mechanism.