The goal of this project is to further understand the autoimmune disease, systemic lupus erythematosis. Cloned V genes from autoantibodies will be used to investigate the origin and nature of autoantibodies and the mechanism of autoantibody production as compared to "normal" antibodies. The hypothesis that autoantibodies are encoded by a biased part of the normal repertoire will be tested as will the role of somatic mutation and idiotype networks. The information gained from these experiments may provide useful diagnostic and therapeutic reagents for lupus.