ROLE OF ‘14_3_3 ETA PROTEIN’ IN PSORIATIC ARTHRITIS

Abstract

Psoriatic arthritis is a distinctive form of inflammatory arthritis which can occur in association with psoriasis. Though it is now recognized as a separate disease entity from other inflammatory arthritic disorders, yet, it is considered a part of the seronegative spondylo-arthropathy family with the characteristic inflammatory manifestations of both spinal and peripheral joints. The clinical course of PsA is unpredictable, evidence indicates that it can be a debilitating condition that leads to increased morbidity and mortality. With the recognition of PsA as a potentially damaging and destructive disease, and that it has a significant impact on functional impairment, joint damage as well as quality of life; came an emphasis on improving assessment and management of the disease to optimize outcome especially that radiographic damage can occur within 2 years of the disease onset in almost half of patients with PsA, and the disease follows a chronic, progressive course in most patients. The diagnosis of PsA can be missed because the patients commonly presented by symptoms other than frank arthritis. The most sensitive and specific criteria that is available to date is the ‗Classification Criteria for Psoriatic Arthritis‘ (CASPAR). Summary and Conclusion  133 14_3_3 has emerged as a group of multifunctional proteins that bind to and modulate the function of a wide array of cellular proteins. More than 200 signaling proteins have been reported as 14_3_3 ligands. This broad range of ligands suggests a role for 14_3_3 as a general biochemical regulator. Through interaction with its effector proteins, 14_3_3 participates in the regulation of diverse biological processes, including neuronal development, cell growth control, and viral & bacterial infection pathogenesis. This study has been proposed detect the role of serum 14_3_3 eta protein in PsA as a diagnostic and a severity marker in relation to clinical and radiological findings. To our knowledge, this thesis may be the first to be conducted on humans using measurement of serum levels in patients with PsA and correlated it with different disease manifestations and radiological findings. We conducted our study on 20 PsA patients, and 10 normal healthy individuals served as a control group. The patient and control groups were subjected to full history taking, thorough clinical examination, laboratory investigations, and plain x-ray of the clinically affected joints.