Blood Cell-Bound C4d as a Marker of Complement Activation in Patients With the Antiphospholipid Syndrome

In conclusion the detection of complement activation products on circulating erythrocytes and platelets using a highly sensitive and specific assay further supports the view that APS is a complement-mediated disorder. Increased EC4d and PC4d percentages are associated with the active inflammatory disease in SLE. It is difficult to translate this finding to APS which is a non-acute inflammatory disorder. We failed to find an association with both the classification and non-classification criteria, including thrombocytopenia. However, we believe that this sensitive tool to evaluate complement activation may offer more information in monitoring the dynamics of the aPL-mediated pathogenic pathways during pregnancy rather than in patients far from the acute thrombotic events. Ethics Statement This study was carried out in accordance with the standard of the good clinical practice with written informed consent from all subjects. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by the ethical committee “Milano Area 2 426_2014.” Author Contributions PL, MS, and MG wrote the first draft of the manuscript. PL and MS performed the ex-vivo and in-vitro studies and interpreted data. MG, GP, and WB evaluated and recruited the patients. FP performed statistical analysis. DC detected aPL. EAF contributed to developing the in-vitro system. MB, MC, FT, and PM contributed to conception and design of the stud...
Source: Frontiers in Immunology - Category: Allergy & Immunology Source Type: research