Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0003873 (rheumatoid arthritis)
 53,068 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Human serum contains amyloid-A-degrading (AADP) activity. This activity is reduced in amyloidosis associated with rheumatoid arthritis. Since AADP co-migrates with albumin on agarose-gel electrophoresis, the relationship between these serum factors was studied in patients with amyloidosis and patients with amyloidosis and patients with altered albumin synthesis and/or distribution. AADP activity correlated positively with albumin levels in patients with rheumatoid arthritis complicated by amyloidosis. A weaker association was noted between serum activity and prealbumin levels. The AADP activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis without signs of amyloidosis and patients with liver cirrhosis was also positively associated with serum albumin level. During the acute-phase reaction after surgery serum AADP activity fell in parallel with serum albumin level. Purified albumin preparations displayed AADP activity. The results show that serum albumin level reflects AADP activity. It is suggested that the development of hypoalbuminaemia in patients with amyloidosis may give rise to a vicious circle which leads to an accelerated reduction in AADP activity and accelerated amyloidogenesis.
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PMID:Mechanism of reduced amyloid-A-degrading activity in serum of patients with secondary amyloidosis. 612 70

The binding of 8 beta-adrenergic blocking drugs to human serum albumin, to alpha 1-acid glycoprotein and to serum from normal volunteers and from patients with rheumatoid arthritis was studied. Protein binding was determined in vitro using equilibrium dialysis of labelled drug at 25 degrees C. Oxprenolol and propranolol were highly bound to serum, alprenolol, pindolol and timolol to a lesser degree, and atenolol, metoprolol and sotalol were negligibly bound. For the five compounds which were appreciably bound, the mean binding was significantly higher in serum from patients with rheumatoid arthritis than in serum from normal volunteers. For those drugs, binding to alpha 1-acid glycoprotein was higher than to human serum albumin, and binding to a mixture of both proteins approached that to serum from healthy volunteers. For each of these drugs there was a strong correlation between the serum alpha 1-glycoprotein concentration and the percentage binding.
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PMID:Binding of beta-adrenoceptor blocking drugs to human serum albumin, to alpha 1-acid glycoprotein and to human serum. 612 95

An assay for the detection and quantitation of immune complexes is described. Experimental immune complexes or aggregated human gamma globulin (AHG) were incubated with polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN). After challenge of the PMN with opsonized zymosan, chemiluminescence was recorded in a scintillation spectrometer. A quantitative inhibition of chemiluminescence could be demonstrated by the interaction of PMN with immune complexes or AHG. Experimental immune complexes of bovine serum albumin-anti-bovine serum albumin were formed and tested by this assay, and immune complexes formed near antigen excess were best described by this technique. The technique was used to demonstrate immune complexes in the sera from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, and vasculitis. Immune complexes were quantitated by reference to a standard curve using AHG. By this technique, normal human sera had < 10 micrograms of AHG per milliliter of serum. Immune complexes at levels above this were detected in 9/15 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, 18/30 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and 2/5 patients with vasculitis. Therefore, this assay is a sensitive, simple method for measurement of circulating immune complexes in the sera of patients with certain connective tissue diseases.
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PMID:Inhibition of polymorphonuclear leukocyte chemiluminescence for detection of immune complexes in human sera. 615 53

The sequential changes in the concentration of specific serum proteins and their relation to amyloid A degrading activity were studied in ten patients with rheumatoid arthritis undergoing arthroplasty of the knee or hip. Serum amyloid A protein increased from a preoperative level of 78 +/- 20 gm/l (mean +/- SEM) to a peak level of 623 +/- 93 mg/l on the third postoperative day (P less than 0.001). The serum amyloid A protein response was greater than that of any other protein including C-reactive protein, to which it was closely related (r = 0.84, P less than 0.001). The concentrations of alpha 1-antitrypsin and alpha 1-antichymotrypsin were highest on the fourth postoperative day (mean changes + 35%, P less than 0.01, and +44%, P less than 0.05, respectively). Serum albumin, pre-albumin and alpha 2-macroglobulin behaved like negative acute phase reactants; the concentrations of albumin and alpha 2-macroglobulin were significantly decreased from the second to sixth and seventh postoperative days, respectively, and the concentration of pre-albumin was significantly decreased on the third and fourth postoperative days. A significant fall in the amyloid A degrading activity of serum occurred during the acute phase reaction. The degradative activity was lowest on the third and fourth postoperative days (P less than 0.001). The results show that the acute phase state in patients with rheumatoid arthritis induces a rise in the concentration of serum amyloid A protein, the putative serum precursor of tissue amyloid A fibrils, and a concomitant reduction in the ability of serum to degrade these fibrils. These factors together may be important in the development of inflammation-associated amyloidosis.
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PMID:The acute phase response and its relation to amyloid A degrading activity in serum of patients with rheumatoid arthritis undergoing arthroplasty. 619 91

A controlled study compared 6 months' treatment of 60 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Half were randomly allocated to treatment with chloroquine 250 mg daily, the other half dapsone 100 mg daily (50 mg/day for the first 7 days) following a one-month run-in assessment period. All patients had active or progressing disease. Both treatment groups showed significant improvement in morning stiffness, number of painful joints, pain scores, Ritchie index, and proximal interphalangeal joint size, and the chloroquine group alone in grip strength. Laboratory tests showed significant decreases in erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, and total serum protein levels, with significant increase in serum albumin in the dapsone group, where there was a significant mean drop in haemoglobin (less than 1 g/dl) and a rise in serum bilirubin, associated with its haemolytic effect. X-ray erosion scores were not significantly affected. The clinical and laboratory responses became evident by the time of the 2-month assessment. Criteria for clinical and laboratory improvement were defined, according to which there were 21/26 improvers in the chloroquine group and 12/29 in the dapsone group. It is concluded that although both are effective preparations, chloroquine showed a significantly higher improvement rate and was certainly better tolerated. It is the preferred treatment for patients with active or progressive disease not controlled by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, with dapsone as an alternative for patients who fail to respond to or cannot tolerate chloroquine.
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PMID:Report on chloroquine and dapsone in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis: a 6-month comparative study. 637 Jan 50

Binding activity of antibodies against polymerized human serum albumin (pHSA) was measured in the serum of 348 patients with various hepatic and non-hepatic diseases and in the serum of 108 control persons. The methods used were passive hemagglutination (PH) with antigen loaded human erythrocytes and radial immunodiffusion (ID). In the PH-method only HBsAg-positive sera reacted. Blocking experiments with pHSA, polymerized bovine serum albumin (pBSA) and monomeric human serum albumin (mHSA) showed, that the PH-method measures HBsAG associated receptors for pHSA. In HBeAG-positive cases titers were significantly higher than in anti-HBe-positive sera. Using the ID-method it could be shown, that 40% of sera of patients with liver diseases (n = 272), 37% of patients with LED (n = 27), 72% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (n = 32), 6% of patients with glomerulonephritis (n = 17) and 2% of normal persons (n = 108) reacted. These sera reacted in the immunodiffusion assay with pHSA and pBSA but not with mHSA. Autoantibodies against non species specific determinants of pHSA which are not specific for liver diseases and possibly due to disturbed immunoregulation can be demonstrated by immunodiffusion. They may possibly be modulators of the pHSA mediated binding of hepatitis B-virus to hepatocytes.
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PMID:[Detection of autoantibodies to polymerized human serum albumin]. 643 69

Significant depression of delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity (DCH) to seven common recall antigens was found in 50 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared with 50 matched controls. Complete skin anergy was seen in 12 (24%) of the RA patients but in none of the control subjects. In addition, a nutritional assessment of all subjects tested showed significantly lower serum albumin and body mass indices in the RA compared with the control group. Analysis of these 100 subjects showed a significant correlation (r = 0.53, p less than 0.001) between the number of positive skin reactions and the concentration of serum albumin suggesting an association between nutritional status and DCH. No single factor could be identified to distinguish the reactive and anergic RA patients with the possible exception of drug treatment in that a higher proportion of patients on sodium aurothiomalate or immunosuppressive therapy than D-penicillamine was found in the anergic group. It is likely that the cause of impaired DCH in RA is multifactorial and our findings suggest that drug treatment and nutritional status may be an important contributor to it.
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PMID:Delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity in rheumatoid arthritis: the influence of nutrition and drug therapy. 646 51

Activation of the alternative pathway of human complement (C) by soluble C activators resulted in a decrease of C9 antigen, measured by single radial immunodiffusion, concomitant with a decrease of C9 hemolytic activity. In the presence of ethylene glycol bis-(beta-aminoethylether)-tetraacetic acid (EGTA) and Mg2+, this decrease of C9 antigen in the presence of soluble activators such as dinitrophenylated bovine serum albumin depends mainly on the activation of the alternative C pathway. Therefore, an assay system to express the total activity of the alternative C pathway in human serum - the C9 depletion test (C9DT) -, was devised. C9DT showed significantly lower values for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis than for control patients.
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PMID:An immunochemical method for assessing the function of the alternative complement pathway. 646 88

Two cross-sectional and one longitudinal study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis showed that platelet number correlated with both clinical and laboratory parameters of disease activity, including erythrocyte sedimentation rate, zeta sedimentation ratio, viscosity of plasma and blood, white cell count, liver enzymes, rheumatoid factor, and several acute-phase proteins. There was also an inverse relationship between platelet number and the haemoglobin and serum albumin levels. III Indium-labelled platelet survival was reduced in 4 patients with active rheumatoid arthritis despite a raised platelet count, with labelled platelets being localised to inflamed joints in the 2 patients studied. Platelet aggregation was normal. We suggest that the raised platelet count of active rheumatoid arthritis may be a useful index of disease activity and may represent a bone marrow stress (syndrome) response to shortened platelet survival, with platelet sequestration occurring in areas of synovial inflammation.
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PMID:Thrombocytosis of active rheumatoid disease. 660 21

A nutritional assessment of 50 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) showed evidence of malnutrition in 13 (26%), while all 50 control subjects had normal nutritional status. Of the anthropometric measurements the body-mass index and triceps skinfold thickness values in men and women were significantly reduced in RA patients compared with controls. Upper arm muscle circumference was significantly less in male but not female rheumatoid patients. In addition all six biochemical determinants of nutrition assayed-serum albumin, transferrin, retinol-binding protein, thyroxine-binding prealbumin, zinc, and folic acid-were significantly lower in the RA group of patients. Malnourished patients had more active disease than the remaining RA patients, with significantly higher ESR, C-reactive protein, and alpha 1 antichymotrypsin measurements. Significant inverse correlations were found between some biochemical measurements of nutrition and indices of disease activity. Our results suggest that in RA the severity of disease adversely affects the nutritional status.
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PMID:Nutritional status in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. 674


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