Evaluation of cellular substrates for antinuclear antibody determinations.

The immunofluorescent technique was employed to evaluate the sensitivity of 10 human and animal cell monolayers and tissue sections as substrates for titering the antinuclear antibody content of serum samples. The highest mean ranks of sensitivity, the relative ability of each substrate to maintain its sensitivity rank when 21 selected positive sera were tested, were achieved by two fibroblast cell lines, baby hamster kidney (BHK 21/C13) and human lung (WI-38), respectively. The least sensitive substrates were commercial rat kidney and liver tissue sections.