Antitissue transglutaminase and antithyroid autoantibodies in children with Down syndrome and celiac disease

Abstract

Objectives: We measured circulating autoantibodies and evaluated the potential of circulating antitissue transglutaminase (tTG) antibodies to determine the presence of celiac disease (CD) in children with Down syndrome.

Methods: An ELISA based on recombinant human tTG was used to measure the levels of immunoglobulin A and immunoglobulin G antibodies in serum samples from 72 children with Down syndrome, 52 children with biopsy-verified CD, 21 disease controls with a normal small intestinal mucosa and 23 healthy controls. Of the 72 Down syndrome children, 11 under-went a small intestinal biopsy.

Results: Four of 72 children with Down syndrome were diagnosed as having CD and three of them had serum levels of immunoglobulin A tTG antibodies greater than 6 U/mL (668, 147 and 7 U/mL). One Down syndrome child with biopsyproven CD had normal levels of immunoglobulin A tTG. Two Down syndrome children had increased levels of immunoglobulin A tTG (13 and 7 U/mL) but none of these children had an intestinal biopsy performed. Of the 52 CD subjects (median 664 U/mL) one was negative for immunoglobulin A tTG (5 U/mL) and all healthy controls (median 1.2 U/mL) and disease controls (median 0.9 U/mL) had immunoglobulin A tTG antibody levels less than 6 U/mL. Two of four Down syndrome children with CD and 36 of 52 celiac children had increased serum levels of immunoglobulin G tTG antibodies. There was no correlation between the serum levels of tTG and antithyroid autoantibodies.

Conclusions: Although the diagnosis of CD depends on histologic evaluation of intestinal biopsies, detection of anti-tTG antibodies provides a useful complementary diagnostic method for CD in children with Down syndrome.