Immunity to soluble retinal antigen in patients with uveitis accompanying juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Studies of immunity to bovine soluble retinal antigen (antigen S) were carried out using serum and peripheral blood lymphocytes from children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and chronic anterior uveitis (JRA-uveitis), children with JRA alone, children with nonrheumatic diseases, and controls who had no ocular or rheumatic disease. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and the lymphocyte transformation assay were used to determine immunity. Antibody to antigen S was present significantly more frequently in children with JRA-uveitis than in children with JRA alone, children with nonrheumatic disorders, or controls. These latter groups did not differ in positivity for this antibody. Lymphocyte transformation occurred more frequently in children with JRA-uveitis than in children with JRA alone or controls. Children with JRA alone and controls had similar frequencies of lymphocyte transformation positivity. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay positivity and lymphocyte transformation positivity tended to occur in different children. Children with JRA-uveitis who had HLA-B35 had the highest frequency of antibody to antigen S. Immunity to antigen S may be the result of ocular damage by mechanisms other than a pathogenic mechanism per se.