Elevated soluble interleukin-2 receptor levels in the sera and synovial fluids of patients with rheumatoid arthritis

✍ Scribed by E. C. Keystone; K. M. Snow; C. Bombardier; Chi-Hsing Chang; D. L. Nelson; L. A. Rubin

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 611 KB
• Volume: 31
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.1780310704

✦ Synopsis

In a previous study, we used an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to measure soluble human interleukin-2 receptors (IL3R), and found that when activated lymphocytes produce cell-associated IL-2R, they also release a soluble form of IL3R into culture supernatants in vitro. Soluble IL-2R have also been detected circulating in vivo at low levels in the serum of healthy individuals, and at abnormal levels in a variety of diseases, particularly those where immune dysfunction is thought to play an important role. We therefore evaluated serum IL-2R levels in 77 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and compared them with levels in 46 age-matched healthy controls. Nineteen additional RA patients with concurrently obtained sera and synovial fluid (SF) samples were compared with 14 patients with osteoarthritis of the knee or hip. The serum IL-2R levels were significantly elevated in RA patients, compared with the control groups (P < 0.0001). Serum IL-2R levels in the RA patients did not correlate with disease activity as determined by a variety of clinical and laboratory parameters. RA SF IL-2R levels were significantly higher than corresponding RA serum IL3R levels (P = 0.OOOl). No such From the