desmosine and Chronic-Disease

Chronic progressive lymphoedema (CPL) is a recently recognised disease of the lymphatic system characterised by lesions in the skin of the lower legs in several draught horse breeds, including the Belgian Draught hourse. Clinical signs slowly progress and result in severe disfigurement of the limbs. Ideally, supportive treatment should be started early in the disease process. However early diagnosis and monitoring progression of CPL is still a challenge.. Elastin changes, characterised by morphological alterations as well as increased desmosine levels, in the skin of the distal limbs of horses affected with CPL are probably associated with a marked release of elastin degradation products, which elicit production of circulating anti-elastin antibodies (AEAbs) in the serum. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for detection of serum AEAbs may document elastin breakdown.. An ELISA technique was used to evaluate levels of AEAbs in sera of 97 affected Belgian Draught horses that were clinically healthy except for possible skin lesions, associated with CPL in their distal limbs. The horses were divided into 5 groups according to the severity of these skin lesions: normal horses (Group 1, n = 36), horses with mild lesions (Group 2, n = 43), horses with moderate lesions (Group 3, n = 8), horses with severe lesions (Group 4, n = 10) and, as a control, healthy Warmblood horses, unaffected by the disease (Group 5, n = 83).. Horses with clinical signs of CPL had significantly higher AEAb levels compared to clinically normal Belgian Draught horses and to healthy Warmblood horses. These levels correlated with severity of lesions.. CPL in draught horses is associated with an increase of serum AEAbs.. Evaluation of serum levels of AEAbs by ELISA might be a useful diagnostic aid for CPL. Pathological degradation of elastic fibres, resulting in deficient support of the distal lymphatics, is proposed as a contributing factor for CPL in Belgian Draught horses.

Topics: Aging; Animals; Autoantibodies; Breeding; Chronic Disease; Desmosine; Diagnosis, Differential; Disease Progression; Elastin; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Female; Horse Diseases; Horses; Lymphedema; Male; Peptides; Sensitivity and Specificity; Skin

Pulmonary emphysema may be a disease in which some elastin in lung is lost. In order to evaluate lung elastin degradation, we developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for desmosine and measured urinary desmosine excretion and serum desmosine levels in healthy individuals and patients with pulmonary emphysema and other chronic pulmonary disorders. The measurement was performed by the inhibition technique of ELISA so that the samples had to be applied to CF11 cellulose mini-column for partial purification of desmosine. Total urinary excretion of desmosine was uniformly low in healthy individuals and patients with lung cancer, but urinary desmosine was elevated in some cases of pulmonary emphysema and diffuse panbronchiolitis. Using this ELISA method, more than 0.06 micrograms/ml serum desmosine concentration could be measured in 3 out of 25 healthy subjects who had never smoked (13.6%), 4/9 healthy current smokers (44.4%) and 19/26 patients with pulmonary emphysema (73.1%). Mean serum desmosine levels of meseared 19 cases of empysema were 0.182 micrograms/ml. It has been reported that approximately 15% of smokers develop pulmonary emphysema. The most important problem now is whether smokers with elevated urinary desmosine or with high serum desmosine will eventuality develop pulmonary emphysema.

Topics: Amino Acids; Bronchiolitis; Chronic Disease; Desmosine; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Humans; Pulmonary Emphysema