Breast implants and antibodies to collagen type I and II

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J Autoimmun, 1994 Dec, 7(6), 775 - 89

Antibodies to collagen: comparative epitope mapping in

women with silicone breast implants, systemic lupus

erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis; Rowley MJ et

al.; Women with silicone breast implants have a

significantly increased frequency of antibodies to

collagen types I and II . To characterize the

specificity of these antibodies, 70 women without a

specific autoimmune disease, according to the criteria

of the American College of Rheumatology, but who had

silicone breast implants were studied for the presence

of serum antibodies to native and denatured human

types I and II collagen by ELISA . Positive sera were

further studied by immunoblotting using peptides

derived by cyanogen bromide digestion of the collagens

.. Samples of 82 women with systemic lupus

erythematosus (SLE), 94 women with rheumatoid

arthritis (RA), and 133 healthy controls were studied

concurrently . There was a high frequency of

autoantibodies to collagen in each of the study groups

when compared to the healthy controls . However, and

of particular interest, the epitope specificity of the

autoantibodies differed markedly . Sera from women

with silicone implants reacted strongly in an

individual-specific manner with multiple peptides of

type I collagen, whereas sera from women with SLE and

RA reacted only weekly with a restricted range of

peptides of type I collagen . Sera from women with RA

reacted strongly with multiple peptides of type II,

whereas sera from women with silicone implants or SLE

reacted only weakly . The reactivity of women with

silicone implants suggests that silicone or its

biodegradation products can act as adjuvants in situ

to enhance the immunogenicity of type I collagen, or

protein-silicone conjugates.