Study investigators examined blood samples from participants in the NYU Women’s Health Study (NYUWHS)--a cohort of 14,274 women enrolled between 1985 and 1991 through a breast cancer screening center in New York City--to identify autoantibodies associated with healthy women. The blood samples were collected at the time of enrollment and at annual screening visits until 1991 and long term follow-up data has been collected through surveys and registry review (National Death Index and state tumor registries).

NYUWHS participants were included in this substudy if they donated two or more blood samples at 1-year intervals and had not been diagnosed with cancer or cardiovascular disease at the last complete follow-up in 2016. The analysis used 92 samples from 46 participants. Assays were conducted with HuProt arrays (version 3.1) with blood sera diluted 1:1,000. The arrays were processed and probed with Alexa-647 labeled anti-human IgG Fc gamma fragment-specific and Cy3 labeled anti-Human IgM Fc5μ fragment-specific secondary antibodies. Spots were captured using a GenePix 4000B scanner and reviewed for quality. A full methodology is detailed in the associated publication. In total, 21,211 autoantigen spots passed quality control criteria and were included in analysis.