The detection of raised levels of IgM to Proteus mirabilis in sera from patients with rheumatoid arthritis

* Departments of Medical Microbiology, Pathology, Medicine, University of Dundee Medical School, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee DD1 9SY Departments of Medical Microbiology, Medicine, University of Dundee Medical School, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee DD1 9SY Received September 27, 1994 Accepted February 7, 1995 An analysis by ELISA of 100 rheumatoid factor (RF)-positive sera selected at random from a collection of sera from patients with various auto-immune diseases and joint pains, and 100 RF-negative sera from the same collection matched by patient age and gender, showed that the RF-positive sera had highly significantly (p