Recombinant autoantigens.

Autoimmune diseases frequently manifest themselves in fulminating immune reactions involving T and B cells that lead to the appearance of circulating autoantibodies. Such antibodies are considered to be of diagnostic relevance and may be pathognomonic for their associated autoimmune diseases. The advent of recombinant protein expression technology has made it possible to economically produce high quality autoantigens for use in immunoassays to detect autoantibodies in patients' sera. This short review is intended to give the reader a brief description of the various autoantigen production methodologies with their advantages and disadvantages, and the limitations of these techniques in the diagnostics of autoimmune diseases.