Two antiprothrombin antibodies against prothrombin and prothrombin - phosphatidyl serine show partial but not total identity

Recently, an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using prothrombin (PT) as the antigen has become a widely used test. Two ELISA methods for the detection of antiprothrombin antibody have been used extensively: one method employs PT as an antigen (aPT), and the other employs PT and phosphatidyl serine (aPT/PS) as antigens along with Ca2+. However, the results obtained by the two methods are not necessarily consistent with each other even using the same samples, suggesting the possibility that aPT and aPT/PS are different antibodies. We conducted an investigation to determine whether aPT and aPT/PS are identical or different antibodies. Five patients who were positive for both tests become negative to aPT after absorption with an aPT-ELISA plate or fluid-phase PT; however, they retained reactivity to aPT/PS after the same absorption procedure. These results suggest that aPT and aPT/PS are partially identical, yet still different antibodies. However, further examination employing more samples may be needed to verify our hypothesis including clarification of the clinicopathological significance of these antibodies in the future. (C) 2002 Lippincott Williams Wilkins.