Hiroshi Shimizu

Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is an autoimmune blistering disorder characterized by tense blisters and urticarial erythema. However, more than 20% of patients with BP do not present typical blister formation, but instead present pruritic erythema, a condition called nonbullous pemphigoid (NBP).^1,2 The present report is the first to address IgG subclasses of autoantibodies in NBP. We describe a case of NBP with IgG4 autoantibodies alone targeting BP230 but not BP180.

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Extramammary Paget’s disease (EMPD) is a rare malignant neoplasm that often presents in areas that abound in apocrine sweat glands¹. Dynamin related protein 1 (Drp1) is a GTPase that regulates mitochondrial fission². Recently, several studies have reported that Drp1 plays critical roles in malignant neoplasms^{3, 4}. However, little is known about the Drp1 function in EMPD. Further, mTOR is reported to be associated with malignancy in EMPD⁵. In this study, we investigate Drp1 and mTOR expression levels in EMPD through immunochemical analyses of clinical samples and analyzed the correlation between the expression levels of Drp1 or mTOR and the clinical information. We found a positive correlation between the expression levels of Drp1 or mTOR and clinical stage of EMPD.

Immunoglobulins consist of two antigen-binding F(ab’)2 variable regions and one constant (Fc) region. Several proteins have the ability to bind to the Fc region, e.g. Fc-receptors, complement C1q, protein A and rheumatoid factor (RF). It is well known that some Fc-binding proteins, including complement C1q and rheumatoid factor, are physiologically present in the body. Regarding