Alcoholic hyalin antigen (AHAg) and antibody (AHAb) in alcoholic hepatitis.

Complement fixation (CF) and immune adherence (IA) hemagglutination tests demonstrate antigen (Ag) and antibody (Ab) to alcoholic hyalin (AH) in serum of patients with alcoholic hepatitis. Immunoglobulins from postmortem liver of patients dying of alcoholic hepatitis show antibody activity against AH. Isolated purified AH was used to produce AHAb in rabbits. Rabbit antiserum was added to heat-inactivated human serum to detect AHAg; purified AH was added to serum and tissue elutes to detect AHAb. AHAg was present in serum of each of 15 patients with early phase alcoholic hepatitis in CF titers of 8 to 64 and IA titers of 16 to 2048. AHAg became negative within 3 to 5 weeks with abstinence from alcohol and was followed by transient appearance of AHAb. AHAb was present in 11 patients with advanced phases of alcoholic hepatitis in CF titers of 8 to 640 and IA titers of 16 to 4096. Four patients in this group exhibited concomitant AHAb and AHAg. Investigations of liver tissue elute reveal that patients with advanced alcoholic hepatitis or active alcoholic cirrhosis have AHAg-reactive immune complexes containing IgG and IgA immunoglobulins.