The use of ELISA is comparable to immunoprecipitation in the detection of selected myositis-specific autoantibodies in a European population

BACKGROUND: The reliable detection of myositis-specific autoantibodies (MSA) provides valuable clinical information regarding prognosis, clinical progression and diagnostic confirmation. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the reliability of a commercial ELISA immunoassay in detecting myositis-specific autoantibodies in comparison to immunoprecipitation as the reference standard. METHODS: Serum samples were chosen from a biobank of more than 3000 samples. Samples with a confirmed MSA on Immunoprecipitation (n=116) were evaluated in duplicate by ELISA to detect Mi2, MDA5, Jo1, EJ, KS, PL-7 and PL-12 (Medical & Biological Laboratories Co. Ltd, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan). Healthy control samples (n=246) confirmed autoantibody negative by immunoprecipitation were similarly assessed. RESULTS: There was a very good agreement between ELISA and immunoprecipitation for serum samples containing anti-Mi2, MDA5, Jo1, EJ, KS and PL-7 and PL-12 auto-antibodies. Cohen’s κ values ranged from 0.86-1 for the measured autoantibodies on ELISA. CONCLUSION: ELISA was an accurate method for detecting anti-synthetase, anti-Mi2 and anti-MDA5 autoantibodies.