An account of aortic regurgitation complicating ankylosing spondylitis is given. Twenty patients with lone aortic regurgitation and without overt spondylitis were examined clinically and radiologically and tissue typed. No evidence of sacroiliitis could be found in any patient. HLA B27 was absent from this group, and no significant disturbance in antigen frequency was noted.

Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) recognize antigens in the context of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I gene products. The T-cell receptor (TCR) that mediates this MHC-restricted antigen recognition recognizes short peptide fragments rather than the intact antigen. Presentation of peptides to the TCR may thus be a major function of the MHC. An intriguing question emerging from this m...

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) are associated with an increased whole-body protein turnover. In certain drug-induced experimental models of IBD, disturbances of protein synthesis in tissues have been reported recently, but it is unclear if similar disturbances occur in other chronic intestinal diseases. Therefore we investigated changes in protein synthesis in different tissues of HLA-B27 (...

The human leukocyte Ag HLA-B27 (B27) is strongly associated with the spondyloarthritides. B27 can be expressed at the cell surface of APC as both classical β2-microglobulin-associated B27 and B27 free H chain forms (FHC), including disulfide-bonded H chain homodimers (termed B27(2)). B27 FHC forms, but not classical B27, bind to KIR3DL2. HLA-A3, which is not associated with spondyloarthritis (S...

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic inflammation of the sacroiliac joints, spine and peripheral joints. The aetiology of ankylosing spondylitis is still unclear. Previous studies have indicated that genetics factors such as human leukocyte antigen HLA-B27 associates to AS susceptibility. We carried out a case-control study to determine whether the genetic polymorphisms of ORAI1 gene, a maj...

Despite having several modes of presentation, psoriatic arthritis usually can be readily distinguished from other forms of polyarthritis. Prominent features in all forms are a predilection for digital joints and occurrence of osteolysis and ankylosis. Rheumatoid factor is usually absent, and the prognosis appears to be better than that for rheumatoid arthritis. The relationship of HLA-B27 histo...

Objective-To investigate the potential influence of the HLA-linked LMP2 gene on disease susceptibility in HLA-B27 individuals with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). Methods-A polymorphic CfoI restriction enzyme site in the coding region of the LMP2 gene was evaluated in genomic DNA samples from 193 white and 49 Chinese B27 individuals with well documented AS, 97 of whom had had acute anterior uveiti...

Abstract HLA-B27 was one of the first Major Histocompatibility Complex alleles associated with an autoimmune disease, i.e., Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) and acute anterior uveitis (B27AU), which cause joint eye inflammation, respectively. As presents antigens to CD8 T cells, antigen-specific cell response may be central disease pathogenesis. Consistent this hypothesis, our recent work identified...

HLA-B27 status in AS patients. For testing the diagnostic values of these specific 28 kDa Drosophila antigen cross-reacting antibodies, only sera from AS patients with a definite diagnosis according to the modified New York criteria were included. As data concerning the diagnostic usefulness of this established ELISA based on the 28 kDa antigen were sparse [5, 6], we intended to perform the stu...