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Lack of evidence of foetal microchimerism in female Spanish patients with systemic sclerosis

Vall d’Hebron General Hospital, Internal Medicine Department, Barcelona, Spain, aselva{at}hg.vhebron.es

T Mijares-Boeckh-Behrens

Vall d’Hebron General Hospital, Internal Medicine Department, Barcelona, Spain

E Balada Prades

Autoimmune Research Unit, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Po Vall d’Hebron 119-139, Barcelona 08035, Spain

R Solans-Laqué

Vall d’Hebron General Hospital, Internal Medicine Department, Barcelona, Spain

C P Simeón-Aznar

Vall d’Hebron General Hospital, Internal Medicine Department, Barcelona, Spain

V Fonollosa-Pla

Vall d’Hebron General Hospital, Internal Medicine Department, Barcelona, Spain

M Vilardell-Tarrés

Vall d’Hebron General Hospital, Internal Medicine Department, Barcelona, Spain

Our objective was to study the presence of microchimerism in a series of 47 female Spanish patients with scleroderma (SSc) and to compare with a control group. Polymerase chain reaction was used to identify Y-chromosome sequences in DNA extracted from peripheral blood cells.Y-chromosome sequences were found in DNA from peripheral blood cells in four out of 47 (8.5%) patients with scleroderma (two limited and two diffuse) and in two out of 40 (5%) healthy women (no statistical differenceswere found). When we compared SSc patients and healthy controls who had had at least one male child, four out of 29 (13.7%) and two out of 26 (7.6%) had microchimerism respectively (no statistically significant differences were found). Patients with both scleroderma and persistent microchimerism had had a male offspring. Foetal microchimerism does not seem to play a major role in most cases of female Spanish patients with SSc.

Key Words: microchimerism • scleroderma • autoimmunity

Lupus, Vol. 12, No. 1, 15-20 (2003)
DOI: 10.1191/0961203303lu248oa


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