Bleomycin-detectable iron in knee-joint synovial fluid from arthritic patients and its relationship to the extracellular antioxidant activities of caeruloplasmin, transferrin and lactoferrin.

Some 40% of knee-joint synovial fluids from arthritic patients show the presence of bleomycin-detectable iron. This is released from a protein component of the fluid to bleomycin at acidic pH values. Patients whose fluids release iron have lower contents of transferrin, lactoferrin and caeruloplasmin than do patients whose fluids do not release iron to bleomycin. These proteins are important extracellular antioxidants, and measured antioxidant activities are extremely low in the iron-releasing fluids. The propensity of some fluids to release iron at low pH values, characteristic of the microenvironment beneath adherent macrophages, coupled with their decreased antioxidant protection against iron-stimulated oxygen-radical damage, might explain previously reported correlations between clinical disease severity, lipid peroxide content and the presence of bleomycin-detectable iron [Rowley, Gutteridge, Blake, Farr & Halliwell (1984) Clin. Sci. 66, 691-695].