Natural anti-GBM antibodies from normal human sera recognize alpha 3(IV)NC1 restrictively and recognize the same epitopes as anti-GBM antibodies from patients with anti-GBM disease
Anti-GBM disease is a rare autoimmune condition characterized by autoantibodies targeting the alpha 3 chain non-collagen 1 domain of type IV collagen (alpha 3(IV)NC1). Recently, we isolated IgG reacting with alpha 3(IV)NC1 from normal healthy human sera. The current study examined the antigen and epitope specificity of these natural autoantibodies (NAA) using recombinant human alpha 1, 3, 5(IV)NC1