New Plasma Autoantigen and its Role in Autoimmune Disease of New Zealand Black Mice

THE New Zealand Black (NZB) strain of mice is an important experimental model for the study of autoimmune diseases¹. These mice are immunologically hyper-responsive to a number of antigens^2,3 and spontaneously initiate autoantibody responses to various autologous tissue antigens, including DNA and an erythrocyte antigen^1,3,4. The significance of anti-DNA⁵ and anti-murine leukaemia virus (MuLV)⁶ responses relative to the pathogenesis of the glomerulonephritis observed in this strain has been the subject of rather concerted inquiry and a proposed immune complex pathogenetic process has been substantiated^5–7. The anti-erythrocyte autoantibody response seems to be immunochemically and pathogenetically distinct^4,6.