Autoantibody to DNA topoisomerase II in primary liver cancer

A patient with chronic hepatitis associated with hepatitis C virus infection was observed to convert from antinuclear antibody-negative to antinuclear antibody-positive status at the time when liver cancer was detected. The newly recognized antibodies reacted with a nuclear protein doublet of 170 and 180 kDa in immunoblotting, and in fluorescence-activated flow cytometry the antigens were shown to vary in expression level in a cell cycle-related manner: minimum in G1, increasing in S, and maximum in G2 and M. In synchronized HeLa and HEp-2 cells, immunofluorescence microscopy showed uniformly distributed staining of the nucleoplasm in S-phase, with increased intensity of nucleoplasmic staining in G2, at which time nucleolar staining was also present. In M, condensed chromosomes were uniformly stained. Using previously characterized polyclonal antibodies to DNA topoisomerase II (topo II) as reference markers, the antigens recognized by the patient's serum were shown in Western blotting to have the same mobilities as DNA topo IIα (170 kDa) and β (180 kDa) isoforms. The patient's serum was also highly efficient in inhibiting DNA topo II in an in vitro functional assay. Antibody to DNA topo II appeared de novo in close association with transformation to cancer, and since dysregulation of DNA topo II is considered to be involved in some forms of tumorigenesis, the observed antibody response in this patient could conceivably be an immune reaction to the abnormally regulated protein.