Do COVİD-19 vaccines trigger autoimmunity? ANA, ANA and anti-CCP levels in different vaccination patterns

Objective: Numerous autoimmune events have been reported following COVID-19 infection. The possibility of triggering autoimmunity after COVID-19 vaccines has begun to be discussed. We aimed to investigate the relationship between COVID-19 vaccines and the development of autoimmunity. Methods: Serum samples were collected within 14-28 days from 376 patients who had either been vaccinated with different patterns of COVID-19 vaccines or had an infection. ANA/AMA were investigated semiquantitatively by the IIFA method and AMA-M2/Anti CCP antibodies were investigated quantitatively by the ELISA method. Results: No significant difference was detected in terms of ANA positivity between the groups with positive and negative COVID-19 history. In cases without COVID-19, ANA positivity was found to be significantly higher in the group with >3 doses of vaccine compared to the group with ≤3 doses(p=0.021). ANA positivity was found to be significantly higher in the 2CV+4BNT group compared to the other groups in both univariate and multivariate analysis(p=0.001, OR:5.49). According to multivariate analysis, ANA positivity was found to be significantly higher in the 2CV+3BNT group compared to the other groups(p=0.027, OR:2.66). While ANA positivity did not differ significantly by gender, it was found to be significantly higher in the 50 and older group(p = 0.008). Conclusions: Our data suggest that a history of COVID-19 does not affect ANA positivity, there may be a possible relationship between autoimmunity and increasing doses of COVID-19 vaccines.