I used the hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyl transferase (hprt) clonal assay to determine the in vivo frequency of mutant T cells (FMC) from the peripheral blood, synovial fluid, and synovial tissue of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and controls. The results demonstrate that there is an increased FMC in the peripheral blood of RA patients compared to controls. There was also a significant elevation in the corrected FMC (cFMC), which takes in to account the cloning efficiency of the T cells, in the peripheral blood of RA patients compared to controls. There is an elevated FMC and cFMC in synovial fluid of RA patients compared to the peripheral blood of controls. However. the FMC and cFMC from the peripheral blood of unselected RA patients from the outpatient clinic is not significantly different than from the synovial fluid of RA patients suggesting that the synovial fluid does not contain the necessary mitogenic and mutagenic factors to induce T cell genetic damage. The FMC and cFMC from RA and osteoarthritis (OA) synovium is approximately ten fold greater than the FMC and cFMC from the peripheral blood of the same patients which suggests that the mitogenic and genotoxic environment of the inflamed synovium is capable of inducing T cell mutations. There was no significant difference in the cloning efficiency of T cells (CE), FMC, and cFMC from the peripheral blood of RA patients with 'active' or 'inactive' disease. No correlation between the cFMC from the peripheral blood of RA patients and clinical disease parameters and patient medication was found. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/9964 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Cannons, Jennifer. |
| Contributors | Goldstein, R., |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 107 p. |
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