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2019 JAN 5 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week -- Investigators discuss new findings in Immunology - Autoimmunity. According to news reporting [...]

The process by which juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA) develops is unclear. However, the presence of several types of autoantibodies (antibodies formed against the body's own tissues) suggest that an autoimmune process is responsible. In other autoimmune diseases, there is a familial tendency toward autoantibody formation. Although some studies have suggested a familial predisposition toward JCA, the presence of autoantibodies in family members of patients with JCA has not been studied. The presence and specificity of autoantibodies of 66 close relatives of 23 children (19 female and 4 male) with JCA was evaluated. Results revealed that 39 of 66 family members had one or more positive tests of autoantibodies. A total of 20 of 23 JCA patients had positive autoantibody tests, 70 percent of which included antinuclear antibodies, or antibodies against molecules in the cell nucleus. Antinuclear antibodies occurred in 14 percent of the family members, a prevalence much higher than that of the larger population to which the study group belonged. Common patterns of antibody occurrence could not be demonstrated among all or even most patients. Antibodies against cardiolipin, a particular kind of fat found in cell membranes, were found in 30 percent of JCA patients. These antibodies have sometimes been linked with clotting episodes in other rheumatic diseases, but no JCA patient with these antibodies was known to have had such an episode. Although these findings suggest that there may be an inherited predisposition toward autoimmune responses among some relations of JCA patients, further research of the autoimmune nature of JCA is needed. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Researchers detail in 'Premature arthritis is a distinct type II collagen phenotype,' new data in Arthritis. 'Mutations in the gene encoding type II collagen (COL2A1) give rise to a spectrum [...]