Affiliations: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and
Psychology, Hospital Clínic, Barcelona, Spain | Department of Immunology Hospital Clínic,
Barcelona, Spain | Department of Microbiology, Hospital Clínic,
Barcelona, Spain | Institut d'Investigació Biomédica August
Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Spain
Note: [] Corresponding author: Dr. Astrid Morer, Department of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology. Hospital Clínic., Sabino Arana
n°1, 08028, Barcelona, Spain. Tel.: +34 932275600 Ext 7329; Fax: +34
932279937; E-mail: amorer@clinic.ub.es
Abstract: Objective: It has been hypothesized that monoclonal antibody D8/17
identifies a B lymphocyte antigen with expanded expression in patients with
rheumatic fever, childhood onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Tourette
syndrome (TS) or prepubertal anorexia nervosa (AN). Our purpose was to
replicate these studies in a Spanish population and to determine whether D8/17
identifies a subgroup of these patients, focusing especially on OCD
subjects. Method: D8/17 expression was assessed with double immunofluorescence
and flow cytometry using monoclonal immunoglobulin M (IgM) in three groups of
patients with diagnoses of OCD (n = 17), TS (n = 5) and prepubertal AN (n =
5), recruited during 2001. Results: In the sample studied the average percentage of B cells
expressing D8/17 was 4.8%. The D8/17 positive proportion of B lymphocytes was
above 11% in only two out of 17 OCD patients (7.4% of total sample) and in
none of the TS or prepubertal AN patients. No statistically significant
differences were found in mean percentages of D8/17 between the three
groups. Conclusions: In the sample studied the expression of D8/17 in B
cells was very low and the great majority of patients were negative for the
D8/17 marker. The molecular characterization of D8/17 would be a major step
forward in clarifying its implication for these diseases.
Keywords: D8/17, B lymphocytes, PANDAS, obsessive compulsive disorder, flow cytometry
