Table 1 Future considerations of characteristics, functions and roles of autoantibodies that impact on their diagnostic relevance

• Role of autoantibodies in personalized medicine

• The host bearing the autoantibody

• The “trigger” that initiated the autoantibody response

• Autoantibody efficacy: a function of specificity, amount, isotype, host genetics/epigenetics

• Autoantibody isotypes and subclasses

• Reconsider the concept of “prozone”

• Autoantibody binding complement and/or other proteins

• Re-evaluate the potential importance of the autoantibody Fc

• Peptoid technology: define novel and disease relevant autoantigens and use them in diagnostics

• Sort the “wheat from the chaff”