spondylarthropathies/protease

Although rheumatoid joint fluids contain numerous polymorphs capable of secreting neutral proteases known to be able to digest cartilage, the high level of inhibitors (mainly alpha 1-antitrypsin and alpha 2-macroglobulin) has always been considered to be more than sufficient to inhibit their

Despite decades of research, only a very limited number of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitors have been successful in clinical trials of arthritis. One of the central problems associated with this failure may be our inability to monitor the local activity of proteases in the joints since the

BACKGROUND Calpastatin is the natural inhibitor of calpains, a protease that is overexpressed in rheumatoid synovial tissue and plays a key role in cartilage destruction. Autoantibodies to calpastatin (ACAST) were recently detected in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Our aim was to determine their

Numerous autoimmune-inflammatory rheumatic diseases have been associated with accelerated atherosclerosis or other types of vasculopathy leading to increased cardio- and cerebrovascular disease risk. Traditional risk factors, as well as the role of systemic inflammation including cytokines,

Increasing evidence suggests that mast cells (MCs), in addition to acute allergic reactions, are involved in the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory diseases and in particular in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). MCs reside in connective tissues and in synovial tissue of joints. They produce an array of

UNASSIGNED The objective of this systematic review is to identify and synthesise the best available evidence to examine whether periodontal disease is a risk factor for rheumatoid arthritis. BACKGROUND Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease of unknown aetiology and has a complex