Anti-nuclear and anti-smooth muscle antibodies in Caucasians, Africans and Asians with acute malaria.

In order to investigate whether or not a racial factor plays a role in modulating the pattern of autoimmune response associated with human malaria infection, we studied the frequencies of anti-nuclear (ANA) and anti-smooth muscle (SMA) antibodies in sera of 152 Caucasians, Africans and Asians with acute malaria. No significant differences were observed in the frequency of these autoantibodies (AAb) between malarial individuals of different racial groups even if we considered subjects of different races infected by the same plasmodial species (P. falciparum) and submitted to similar degrees of exposure to malaria infection, indicating that the pattern and frequency of the malaria induced AAb do not seem to be determined or modulated by racial factors.