Matrix Metalloproteinase-3 And Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor Correlate With Disease Activity And Mechanism In Ankylosing Spondylitis

Objective. Using microarrays, we have tentatively identified matrix metalloproteinase-3 (MMP-3) and macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF) as being highly expressed in the synovial tissues of spondyloarthropathy (SpA) patients. The purpose of this paper is to use serum and synovial fluid (SF) measurements to assess their significance and correlation between serum levels of MMP-3 and disease activity index of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) . Another purpose of this paper is to study the mechanism between MMP-3 and TNF-α.Methods. RNAs from 11 SpA synovial tissue samples were compared to those from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of 10 normal subjects by using a 1176 gene microarray. The serum and synovial fluid levels of MMP3 and M-CSF were measured by ELISA method. Two groups of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) subjects were tested. The first group consisted of patients who have not been treated with biologicals. In the second group, serum samples were collected before and 14 weeks after initiation of infiiximab. These were compared to serum samples from 28 normal subjects, and synovial fluid samples from 15 SpA patients. Analysize the correlations between the levels of MMP-3 and M-CSF and disease activity index of AS such as BASDAI, BASFI, ESR and CRP. Stimulate the PBMC and SFMC by using human recombinant MMP-3 and measure whether there are any changes of TNF-a expression before and after being stimulated in vitro.Results. 1. The signal intensities of four genes were significantly different between 11 SpA synovial tissues and normal PBMC of microarray results and the four genes are MMP-3, M-CSF, IL-7 and BAD protein. 2. Both MMP3 and M-CSF were detectable in serum and synovial fluid samples of patients of SpA an AS, MMP-3 (P<0.00001) was especially high in synovial fluids comparing to that of M-CSF (P>0.05) . 3. In the group of AS patients not treated with...