Correlation be tween serum expression levels of decorin, chondroitin sulfate and C-terminal crosslinking telopeptide of type Ⅱ collagen and clinical features in arthritis patients / 中华风湿病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate changes in the serum expression levels of decorin (DCN),chondroitin sulfate (CS) and C-terminal crosslinking telopeptide of type Ⅱ collagen (CTX-Ⅱ) and analyze the relationship between the expression levels and clinical characteristics,aiming to provide evidence for clinical diagnosis and treatment of arthritis.Methods Ninety subjects were divided into the osteoarthritis (OA),rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and control groups (n=30 for each group).The OA and RA patients were diagnosed in Department of Rheumatism Immunity of Shanxi Dayi Hospital,and the healthy volunteers who were doing physical check-up in the Physical Check-up Center of Shanxi Dayi Hospital were recruited as the control subjects.Visual analogue scale (VAS) was utilized to evaluate the degree of pain.X-ray was performed to assess the severity of joint lesions.Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was adopted to quantitatively measure the serum expression levels of DCN,CS and CTX-Ⅱ.The correlation among these parameters was statistically analyzed.Measurement data among different groups were statistically compared by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA)and comparison between two groups was conducted by Tambane's T2.The correlation between two factors was analyzed by using Spearman correlation analysis.Results The difference of the serum expression levels of DCN in the OA,RA and control groups [(3.19±1.38) ng/ml,(1.90±0.62) ng/ml,(1.33 ±0.33) ng/ml] was statistically significant,which of the OA group was higher than the control group (P＜0.01),which of the RA group was higher than control group (P＜0.01),which of the OA group was higher than the RA group (P＜0.001).The difference of the serum expression levels of CS in the OA,RA and control groups [(0.57±0.12) ng/ml,(0.95±0.47) ng/ml,(0.36±0.09) ng/ml] was statistically significant,in which,the OA group was higher than the control group (P＜0.01),RA group was higher than control group (P＜0.01),OA group was lower than RA group (P＜0.01).The serum expression levels of CTX-Ⅱ in the OA and RA groups [(3.08±0.86) ng/ml,(3.03±1.14) ng/ml] were significantly up-regulated compared with those in the control group [(2.17±0.82) ng/ml](P＜0.001,P=0.005).The expression level of CTX-Ⅱ did not significantly different between the OA and RA groups (P=0.996).In the OA and RA groups,the serum levels of DCN,CS,CTX-Ⅱ were po-sitively related to X-ray and VAS,the correlation of DCN was the highest,the correlation was high in both OA (r=0.777,P＜0.01;r=0.622,P＜0.01) and RA (r=0.640,P＜0.01;r=0.493,P=0.006).Conclusion The serum levels of DCN,CS and CTX-Ⅱ in arthritis patients are significantly up-regulated compared with those in healthy controls,which are positively correlated with the degree of pain,and the severity of cartilage and bone defects.DCN is probably valuablein the differential diagnosis of early OA and RA.However,the clinical application remains to be further validated by evidence-based studies.