Figure 1.
Ex vivo maternal anti-brain autoantibody removal. The identification of the specific peptide epitopes targeted by maternal anti-brain autoantibodies enables the specific removal of these antibodies using plasmapheresis. First (1) the blood cells are separated from the blood plasma and returned to the maternal blood stream. Subsequently(2), the plasma is filtered using affinity chromatography. In this procedure, the anti-brain autoantibodies are selectively removed from the maternal blood stream by filtering the plasma through a peptide-bound column. Autoantibodies with reactivity to the peptide epitopes will bind to the column and are removed from circulation, while the remaining, unbound antibodies are returned to the maternal blood stream.