Autoantibodies bind to autoantigens

Autoantibodies are major biomarkers of several autoimmune diseases and are used for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. Antibody’s main function is twofold; it binds to an antigen, such binding elicits a chain of reactions, such as activation of other components of the immune system, antibody-depended cytotoxicity, and recruitment of cells and chemokines. An antibody binds to its respective antigen and the antigenic site is called epitope. In the case of autoantibodies, the respective antigen sites all called autoepitopes. As in the case of the epitopes of infectious agents, autoepitopes are mainly conformational and to a lesser extent linear.