Morgan K, Clague R B, Collins I, Ayad S, Phinn S D, Holt P J
Department of Rheumatology, University of Manchester Medical School, UK.
Arthritis Rheum. 1989 Feb;32(2):139-45. doi: 10.1002/anr.1780320205.
Antibodies to native and denatured collagens (types I, II, IX, and XI) were measured in sequential serum samples collected over 1.5-8.7 years (median 4.3) from 15 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Eleven patients were seropositive and 4 were seronegative. Disease duration ranged from 3 years to 25 years before the first sample was tested. The patients showed a selective and varying response to collagens, even after disease had been present for a long time. Changes in the levels of antibody to one collagen type were not necessarily linked to changes in the levels of antibody to other collagens. Only some patients showed a strong correlation between C-reactive protein levels (a measure of disease activity) and antibodies to individual collagens. These findings suggest that rheumatoid arthritis patients produce antibodies to a wide variety of epitopes on these collagen molecules, as a result of different antigenic epitopes being exposed by cartilage degradation at different times throughout the disease.
