Photo Credit: Henadzi Pechan
The following is a summary of “New complex cell junctions in and around the intervertebral discs discovered using autoantibodies from patients affected by endemic pemphigus foliaceus in El Bagre, Colombia, South America,” published in the September 2024 issue of Dermatology by Velez et al.
The intervertebral disks (IVD), nucleus pulposus (NP), and annulus fibrosus (AF) are traditionally thought to have few cellular components and cell junctions. Patients with another variant of endemic pemphigus foliaceus in El Bagre, Colombia, experience back pain in the spinal areas of the lower and upper back.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to examine the reactivity of the patient’s autoantibodies to structures in and around the IVDs at the cellular level.
They investigated a questionnaire, medical examination, and autoantibody testing against IVDs by indirect immunofluorescence, confocal microscopy, and reflectance confocal microscopy with bovine and human tissues, 45 sera from patients with the disease and control sera from the endemic area were sampled, matched by age, gender, demographics, and work activity.
The results showed that there were many different antibodies in the blood of patients with NP and AF. These antibodies reacted to newly discovered cell connections and also showed some activity against cell connections in spinal cord neurons, nearby nerves, blood vessels, and ligaments in the back, as well as muscles around the spine. The patient’s autoantibodies co-localized with commercially available antibodies to desmoplakins I–II; armadillo repeat gene deleted in velo-cardio-facial syndrome, plakophilin-4, and myocardium-enriched zonula occludens-1-associated protein (P<0.001).
They concluded with the discovery of novel complex cell junctions in patients with IVDs using autoantibodies, highlighting the knowledge of IVD and representing a breakthrough to many diseases.
Source: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ijd.17471
