Anti-cardiolipin/beta-2 glycoprotein activities co-exist on human anti-DNA antibody light chains.

We have recently shown that the human anti-DNA antibodies B3 and 33H11 also bind cardiolipin and that the anti-autoantigen activity resides predominantly on their lambda light chains. We now show that the two auto-antibodies possess strong reactivity to the plasma-protein 2-Glycoprotein I (beta2-GPI) also. Utilizing chain shuffling experiments involving an unrelated anti-p185 antibody 4D5 with insignificant reactivity to cardiolipin or to beta2-GPI, we now demonstrate that hybrid Fabs with constituent light chain, but not the heavy chain, of B3 or 33H11, exhibit anti-cardiolipin activity. Furthermore, the constructs possessing the auto-antibody-derived light chain also exhibited significant reactivity to beta2-GPI. The results suggest that anti-DNA, anti-cardiolipin and anti-beta2-GPI activities co-exist on the light chains of the antibodies studied and, importantly, these activities could be transferred to antibody constructs by their light chains alone. Computer-generated models of the three-dimensional structures of the auto-antibodies and their hybrids, suggest predominant interaction of their light chains with domain IV of beta2-GPI.