Sera from patients with malignant mesothelioma can contain autoantibodies.

Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is resistant to all conventional forms of therapy though there is considerable evidence from clinical trials and animal models of the disease that an immune response can be elicited to the tumour. In order to define those target antigens expressed by MM cells which might provide a focus for an effective immune response we tested patients' sera for the presence of MM autoantibodies by Western blot analysis. Eight of 29 (28%) patients with MM had serum antibodies of the IgG class in high titre and each antiserum recognised different protein antigens. In those individuals where sequential samples were available, the antibody titre increased with the progression of the disease though the number of target antigens remained constant. Sera from the eight patients were studied further: six of the antigen complexes were expressed at least partially in the nucleus; two showed some specificity for the tumour in that they discriminated antigens that were highly expressed in all human MM cell lines, but were not expressed in a human SV40 transformed mesothelial line; four of the antisera recognised a homologue in mouse tissue and each of these had a different pattern of expression. Collectively, these antisera define a subset of nuclear autoantigens that are over-expressed in dividing cells.