Autoantibodies are an integral part of the process of classifying, detecting, and, at least in some cases, mediating autoimmune diseases. Since the discovery of the antinuclear antibody more than 40 years ago, it has been closely associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Yet the antinuclear antibody is not just one antibody but, actually, many different antibodies associated with a variety of diseases and disease manifestations. For example, a positive test for antinuclear antibodies due to the presence of antibodies to double-stranded DNA is highly associated with lupus nephritis (and these autoantibodies are probably pathogenic in some cases); antibodies to single-stranded . . .
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Robert H. Shmerling (2003) studied this question.