title: The Autophagy Level Is Increased in the Synovial Tissues of Patients with Active Rheumatoid Arthritis and Is Correlated with Disease Severity.
abstract: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a complex and not fully understood autoimmune disease associated with multijoint damage. The main effector cells, the synovial fibroblasts, are apoptosis resistant and hyperplastic which indicate that autophagy level is high in synovial tissue. Real-time PCR, immunocytochemistry, and western blotting were used in this paper to study the autophagy status of the synovial tissues obtained from RA and OA patients at the time of joint replacement surgery. We further evaluated the correlation between autophagy levels with RA activity-associated serum markers with SPSS. The results showed that the expression levels (both in mRNA and in protein level) of autophagy-related proteins (belcin1, Atg5, and LC3) in the synovial tissue of patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (n= 20) were significantly higher than those in OA patients (n= 16). We further showed that the LC3-II/β-actin relative gray value was strongly correlated with the serum levels of several RA activity-related markers: CRP, ESR, CCP, and RF. Our results indicate that evaluating the autophagy level of synovial biopsies might be a useful way to diagnose RA and to estimate the disease activity. Reducing the expression level of autophagy-related genes might become a new therapeutic target for active rheumatoid arthritis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Affiliated Wuxi People's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi 214023, China; Department of Laboratory Diagnosis, Changhai Hospital of the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Diagnosis, Changhai Hospital of the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Huaizhou
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Diagnosis, Changhai Hospital of the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Diagnosis, Changhai Hospital of the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Zhengwen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Diagnosis, Changhai Hospital of the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Yanghua
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-9516-7441
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Diagnosis, Changhai Hospital of the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Qian
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4210-3131
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Shen
mesh_terms: D000199:Actins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D000368:Aged; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology*; D001343:Autophagy / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D000071187:Autophagy-Related Protein 5 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008297:Male; D008869:Microtubule-Associated Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D008875:Middle Aged; D013582:Synovial Fluid / Q000378:metabolism*; D013583:Synovial Membrane / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: C502778:ATG5 protein, human; D000199:Actins; D000071187:Autophagy-Related Protein 5; C477012:MAP1LC3A protein, human; D008869:Microtubule-Associated Proteins