Antinucleic acid antibodies.

The discovery of the LE cell phenomenon (Hargraves et al., 1948) has had particularly far-reaching effects beyond the immediate clinical field of rheumatology. It was, firstly, a timely spur urging research on the underlying causes of the systemic diseases of connective tissue into the then untrodden immunological paths that are now highways accommodating an ever-increasing army of investigators with ever-increasing expectations. It was also the seed (to change the metaphor) that engendered in the minds of those connected with laboratory investigation of patients the conviction that the more precisely the specificity of autoantibodies such as the LE cell factor can be defined the greater their discriminant value for diagnosis and prognosis and the better the chance of gaining insight into the underlying immunopathology, not to say aetiology. The extent to which these expectations about the role of anti-nuclear antibodies have been realised in the intervening decades is ripe for consideration.