Demonstration of chemotactic factor in human gout: further characterization of occurrence and structure.

The early events in gout are not clear. In the present studies a chemotactic factor having a molecular weight of 8,400 has been identified in human gouty synovial fluid. Washed crystals from a tophus were shown to generate chemotactic activity when added to polymorphonuclear leukocytes. Amino acid analysis demonstrated this chemotactic factor to be relatively rich in glycine, serine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid and alanine. Evidence from canine experiments suggest that chemotactic activity may also be produced by synovial lining cells. The amount of chemotactic activity that can be demonstrated diminishes over time in joints repeatedly injected with urate crystals.