Luciferase Immunoprecipitation Systems for Measuring Antibodies in Autoimmune and Infectious Diseases

Burbelo, Peter D.; Lebovitz, Evan E.; Notkins, Abner L.

Antibody profiles have the potential to revolutionize personalized medicine by providing important information related to autoimmunity against self-proteins and exposure to infectious agents. One immunoassay technology, Luciferase Immunoprecipitation Systems (LIPS), harnesses light emitting recombinant proteins to generate robust, high quality antibody data often spanning a large dynamic range of detection. Here we describe the general format of LIPS and discuss studies using the technology to measure autoantibodies in several human autoimmune diseases including type I diabetes, Sjögren's syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, and immunodeficiencies secondary to anti-cytokine autoantibodies. We also describe the usefulness of evaluating antibodies against single or multiple antigens from infectious agents for diagnosis, pathogen discovery and for obtaining individual exposure profiles. These diverse findings support the notion that LIPS is a useful technology for generating antibody profiles for personalized diagnosis and monitoring of human health.