Figure 4.

Representative experiments in duplicate dot blots of combinations of 15-mer peptide epitopes (A) and densitometric scans of reactive dot blots (B).

Notes: (A) shows duplicate dot blots of combinations of peptides (A1 though A10) incubated with men and women sera that were highly seroreactive (labeled 4+/5+) with α-actinin by ELISA (34) as well as with the negative control nonreactive sera (labeled -0-). Only one dot blot each is shown for the negative control reaction. (B) presents the densitometric scans performed on the dot blots from experiment 1 for the combinations of peptides (bars numbered 1 through 7) as well as for the positive control ACT2 plus ACT3 (bar numbered 8). Bars 9 and 10 show the absence of any reactivity, using the negative control women and/or men sera. The individual epitopes are those indicated in Table 4.

Abbreviations: ACT, α-actinin; ALD, fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase; con, control; ELISA, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; ENO, α-enolase; GAP, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase glyceraldehyde; neg, negative.