rheumatoid vasculitis/protease

The ability of sera from 11 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) complicated by leukocytoclastic vasculitis (RV) to induce injury to cultured monolayers of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HEC) was investigated. Injury was assessed in vitro using assays of cell lysis and cell detachment.

Human neutrophils have great capacity to cause tissue damage in inflammatory diseases via their inappropriate activation to release reactive oxygen species (ROS), proteases and other tissue-damaging molecules. Furthermore, activated neutrophils can release a wide variety of cytokines and chemokines