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Anti-Nuclear Antibody Testing:

One of the major diagnostic tests in the evauation of rheumatologic disease is the anti-nuclear antibody or ANA. This test is carried out using immunofluorescence labelling of the Hep-2 cell line to detect antibodies in patient serum that react with nuclear components of the cells - a pattern of fluorescence (homogenous versus nucleolar, etc) and an antibody titer are also determined for positive sera. Additional useful information may be obtained by further characterizing the nature of the anti-nuclear antibodies by "extractable nuclear antigen (ENA)" testing, using immunodiffusion, ELISA or other technology to assess specificity for antigens such as Jo-1, Sm, SS-A, SS-B, histone, etc.

Fluorescent Cell Image Floursecent Cell Image
 

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Page last revised: April 30, 2007