Subject: Re: Connective Tissue Disease and Crohn's Disease
From: frank at rabbits.demon.co.uk (Frank Hay)
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 07:44:24 GMT
Message-ID: <frank-1901950744240001 at rabbits.demon.co.uk>
In article <Pine.A32.3.91.950112160431.23385F-100000 at yu1.yu.edu>,
glickman at yu1.yu.edu (Lara Glickman) wrote:
> I would really appreciate it if you could tell me the details on a
> connection between a connective tissue disease (such as SLE) and Crohn's
> disease. Are there rheumatological manifestations of Crohn's? Are
> there any neurological manifestations?
> thank you very much please respond it's very important.
:In rheumatoid arthritis the IgG antibodies show an abnormality in
: glycosylation. Sugar chains are attached to the Fc end of the antibody
molecule at asparagine 297. These branched biantennary sugars normally
:terminate in galactose but in RA patients the galactose is frequently
:missing and the next sugar down the chain, N-acetylglucosamine becomes
:terminal instead. This same abormality occurs in Crohn's disease.
:Interestingly during pregnancy many patients with RA improve and in
:parallel there sugars return to normal. The sugar abnormality seems to
:be
:related to low activity of the galactosyl transferase enzyme in the
:B-lymphocytes responsible for making antibodies.
:Incidentally, does anyone know whether Crohn's disease patients improve
:if
:they become pregnant?
The clinical consequences of pregnancy in Crohn's disease is variable. In
roughly a 1/3 of patients the activity of the crohn's diminishes; 1/3 it
stays unchanged and in 1/3 it gets worse.
I find it hard to integrate the abnormality of antibody glycosylation
mentioned with the immunopathophysiology of crohns.
Kevin Horgan
Division of Digestive Diseases
UCLA
