Majone Franca, Olivieri Silvia, Cozzi Franco, Montaldi Anna, Tonello Marta, Visentin Maria Serena, Ciprian Luca, Ruffatti Amelia
Department of Biology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
Rheumatol Int. 2009 Jun;29(8):891-5. doi: 10.1007/s00296-008-0799-x. Epub 2008 Dec 3.
The sera of 39 patients (38 women and 1 man), 16 with limited and 23 with diffuse clinical form of systemic sclerosis (SSc), were tested for anti-centromere (ACA), anti-topoisomerase I (ATA) and anti-RNA polymerase III (ARA) antibodies. The presence of apoptotic cells in cultures of circulating lymphocytes was investigated using the TUNEL (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated deoxyuridine triphosphate nick end labeling) technique. ACAs were present in 16 (41%), ATA in 15 (38%) and ARA in 8 (21%) cases. The mean frequency of apoptotic lymphocytes was statistically higher in the ARA positive patients with respect to that in the control population (P < 0.001), in ACA (P < 0.001) and in the ATA (P < 0.001) groups. Moreover, apoptosis was distributed homogenously in ACA and ATA positive subjects, but not in the ARA patients. Our results show that there is an increase in apoptosis in the lymphocytes of ARA positive SSc patients.
对39例患者（38名女性和1名男性）的血清进行了检测，其中16例为局限性系统性硬化症（SSc），23例为弥漫性系统性硬化症，检测项目包括抗着丝点抗体（ACA）、抗拓扑异构酶I抗体（ATA）和抗RNA聚合酶III抗体（ARA）。采用末端脱氧核苷酸转移酶介导的脱氧尿苷三磷酸缺口末端标记（TUNEL）技术研究循环淋巴细胞培养物中凋亡细胞的存在情况。16例（41%）患者存在ACA，15例（38%）存在ATA，8例（21%）存在ARA。与对照组相比，ARA阳性患者凋亡淋巴细胞的平均频率在统计学上显著更高（P < 0.001），ACA组（P < 0.001）和ATA组（P < 0.001）也是如此。此外，凋亡在ACA和ATA阳性受试者中分布均匀，但在ARA患者中并非如此。我们的结果表明，ARA阳性的SSc患者淋巴细胞凋亡增加。
