Figure 3

Correlation between functional responses against collagen autoantibody immune complex and serum collagen autoantibody levels in 72 early rheumatoid arthritis patients. (a), (b) Data for polymorphonuclear granulocyte CD66b and CD16 expression. (c), (d) Data for polymorphonuclear granulocyte supernatant levels of myeloperoxidase (MPO) and peripheral blood mononuclear cell supernatant levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha (ΤΝFα). Twenty-four of the patients have collagen type II autoantibody (anti-CII), nine of which represent the very high outlier group. The 48 anti-CII-negative patients chosen were those with the lowest anti-CII levels detectable with rheumatoid factor (n = 24) and without rheumatoid factor (n = 24) in the full rheumatoid arthritis cohort (n = 274). Statistics performed with the Spearman rank correlation test. AU, arbitrary units; MFI, mean fluorescence intensity; NS, nonsignificant.