Autoantibodies against cytochrome P450s in sera of children treated with immunosuppressive drugs

Treatment with the immunosuppressive drugs cyclosporin and tacrolimus, the mainstays of anti‐graft rejection and autoimmune disease therapy, is limited by their hepato‐ and nephrotoxicity. The metabolic conversion of these compounds to more easily excretable products is catalysed mainly by hepatic cytochrome P4503A4 (CYP3A4) but also involves extrahepatic CYP3A5 and other P450 forms. We set out to study whether or not exposure to cyclosporin and FK506 in children undergoing organ transplantation leads to formation of autoantibodies against P450s. Immunoblotting analysis revealed anti‐CYP reactivity in 16% of children on CyA for anti‐graft rejection or treatment of nephrosis (n = 67), 31% of kidney transplant patients switched from CyA to FK506 (n = 16), and 21% of kidney and or liver transplant patients on FK506 (n = 14). In contrast, the frequency of reactive immunoblots was only 8·5% among the normal paediatric controls (n = 25) and 7% among adult kidney transplant patients on CyA or FK506 (n = 30). The CYP2C9+ sera were able to immunoprecipitate in vitro translated CYP2C9 and the immunoblot reactivity showed striking correlation to peaks in the age at onset of drug exposure. Sera were isoform selective as evidenced from Western blotting using human liver microsomes and heterologously expressed human P450s. These findings suggest that anti‐cytochrome P450 autoantibodies, identified on the basis of their specific binding in immunoblots, are significantly increased among children on immunosuppressive drugs and in some cases are associated with drug toxicity and organ rejection.