Utility of Bovine Serum Albumin Antibodies as a Biomarker for Arthritis in Children

We studied the significance of antibodies to bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a biomarker for juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). Sera from 30 children newly diagnosed with polyarticular JIA and sera from 30 healthy children matched for sex and age were tested for IgA, IgG and IgM by ELISA. BSA was used as a target to characterize changes in levels of interacting immunoglobulins. Initial results obtained before removal of antibodies that interacted with BSA suggested that JIA patients had increased levels of IgA in their sera. The serum IgA level was significantly (p