From January 2015 to August 2019 we prospectively recruited patients attending the peripheral nerve clinic in the John Radcliffe Hospital (Oxford, UK) with either confirmed or suspected inflammatory neuropathy to an observational study (Research Ethics Committee approval number 14/SC/0280). These patients provided informed written consent. Serum samples from these patients, and patients with suspected inflammatory neuropathies, received by our laboratory for diagnostic testing between August 2017 and August 2019. were screened for antibodies against paranodal (CNTN1, contactin-associated protein 1—Caspr1, neurofascin 155—NF155) and nodal (NF140/186) antigens.
To investigate whether CNTN1 antibodies might be more widely associated with nephrotic syndrome caused by idiopathic MGN itself, we examined 295 serum samples from patients with idiopathic membranous nephropathy, collected as part of the MRC Glomerulonephritis bank [14 (link)].
Serum samples from 70 patients with other antibody-mediated CNS neurological disorders, 20 with multiple sclerosis, 120 individuals without neurological disease, and 46 patients with lupus nephritis, including pure class V membranous lupus nephritis, were also obtained as controls (S1 Fig).
Information that could identify individual participants was stored confidentially and only accessible at the time of data collection to treating physicians, or those with necessary ethical approval and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training. Data was subsequently de-identified.
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