On the Immunology Front

S. Mesahel, University of Birmingham U.K., published the results of a study titled: Urinary Levels of Neopterin and Biopterin in Autism. Increased neopterin levels are known to be associated with activation of the cellular immune system. Reduced biopterins are essential for neurotransmitter syntheses. In this study, both urinary neopterin and biopterin were raised in the autistic children compared to controls and the siblings showed intermediate values.
Serum auto-antibodies to brain in Landau-Kleffner variant (LKSV), autism and other neurological disorders (OND) were reported by Anne Connolly of St. Louis Children's Hospital. Connolly's results show lgG anti-brain autoantibodies present in 45% of sera from children with LKSV, 27% with autism and 10% with ONDs compared with 2% in healthy children. lgM autoantibodies were present in 36% of sera from children with autism, 9%with LKSV and 15% with ONDs compared with 0% of control sera.
The author concludes that the presence of these antibodies raises the possibility that automimmunity plays a role in the pathogenesis of language and social developmental abnormalities in a subset of children with these disorders.
Andrew Zimmerman and Anne Comi of John Hopkins Hospital report on familial clustering of autoimmune disorders in autism. This research group surveyed the families of 61 autistic patients and 46 healthy controls using questionnaires. The mean number of autoimmune disorders was greater in families with autism.
Forty-six percent had two or more members with autoimmune disorders. Zimmerman purports that the increased number of autoimmune disorders suggests that in some families with autism, immune dysfunction could interact with various environmental factors to play a role in autism pathogenesis.
Gina DelGiudice-Asch* reports B lymphocyte antigen D8/17 (which can be associated with a constellation of repetitive behaviors, sometimes referred to as PANDAS: pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcus), to be higher in 18 autistic patients than in 14 medically ill controls.
The frequency of individuals with higher than normal levels of D8/17-positive cells was significantly greater in the autistic patients (78%) than controls (21%). The researchers believe that elevated D8/17 expression may serve as a marker for compulsion severity with autism.
Dr. Sudhir Gupta* located at the University of California, Irvine, is still completing his double blind study of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment in autistic children and we await the outcome of this important study.