A distinct profile of six soluble adhesion molecules (ICAM-1, ICAM-3, VCAM-1, E-selectin, L-selectin and P-selectin) in rheumatoid arthritis

Soluble forms of ICAM-1, VCAM-1, E-selectin, L-selectin, P-selectin and,more recently, ICAM-3 are known to exist in human serum and have elevatedlevels in numerous diseases. Previous studies have demonstrated that inrheumatoid arthritis (RA) the levels of circulating sICAM-1 and sE-selectinare elevated relative to healthy controls. We have compared the serumprofiles of these six soluble adhesion molecules in patients with RA (n =22) to those seen in healthy controls (n = 10) using sandwich ELISA. In thepatients, there were significant elevations of serum sICAM-1 (P <0.0001), sICAM-3 (P = 0.0327), sVCAM-1 (P = 0.0025), sL-selectin (P =0.0194) and sP-selectin (P = 0.0025), but not E-selectin (P = 0.0672).However, only sP- selectin was found to correlate with disease activity inthe patients (r = 0.461, P < 0.05). Thus, there is a distinct profile ofsoluble adhesion molecules in RA of which only sP-selectin correlates withdisease activity.