Anti-gliadin antibody specificity for gluten-derived peptides toxic to coeliac patients.

The specificities of serum and intestinal antibodies from coeliac and normal individuals towards gluten-derived peptides, known to be toxic in coeliac disease, has been investigated. Though untreated coeliacs had high serum antibody levels towards gliadin and some gluten-derived peptides, antibody specificities to various toxic gluten-derived peptides were similar to normal patients. Further, no significant binding in any patient group was found to the alpha-gliadin-derived peptides B1342 (Wieser, Belitz & Ashkenazi, 1984) or the 12 amino-acid A-gliadin peptide (Kagnoff, 1985). There appears to be no direct relationship between the toxicities and the antigenic reactivity of gluten-derived peptides. Thus, the intestinal damage in coeliac disease is probably not primarily caused by antibody-dependent mechanisms. The specificities of several monoclonal antibodies which bound to wheat prolamins as well as prolamins from other coeliac-toxic cereals have also been investigated with these toxic gluten-derived peptides, in order to identify possible common epitopes. No monoclonal antibody tested bound the B1342 and 12-amino-acid A-gliadin peptide. However the monoclonal antibodies which were specific for the coeliac-toxic cereal prolamins did show the strongest binding to other coeliac-toxic gluten-derived peptides.