Steroids prevent protein changes seen in the joints of people with rheumatoid arthritis

Friday, January 27, 2012 - 04:02 in Health & Medicine

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease where the body begins to attack the joints and organs of the body. Proteins within inflamed joints are often modified by citrullination, a process that converts the protein building block arginine into citrulline. These two amino acids have very different physical properties and consequently conversion can result in aberrant changes in the three-dimensional structure of an affected protein. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Arthritis Research & Therapy shows that glucocorticoid therapy can reduce the amount of citrullination and the amount of the enzyme peptidylargininedeiminase 4 (PAD4) responsible for citrullination in the joints of people with RA.

Read the whole article on Physorg

More from Physorg

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net