Lysosomes and the connective tissue diseases

Abstract

Lysosomes are small intracellular organelles present in most or all cells of animals of widely different evolutionary development. In general their diameter may vary from 0(2 to 0(5 ,tm so that they overlap the 105 copyright.

Diseases of connective tissue: a consensus

“…Thus the selective identification of type IV collagen in tissue sections by the histochemical method of Bock (1978), a technique based on the relatively high cystine content of type IV collagen (8 half-cystine residues/ 1000) compared with type III (2 half-cystine residues /1000) and types I and II (from which cystine is absent), suggests that understanding of basal laminar disease may advance quickly. Advances in enzymology in relation to the pathogenesis of connective tissue disease have not been limited to analyses of lysosomal function (see L. Bitensky (Bitensky, 1978) at page 105), although it could fairly be claimed that the lysosomal concept (de Duve et al, 1955) was the spark that ignited the present explosive advance in knowledge of the cathepsins in inflammation (Dingle, 1969) and, in particular, of the neutral collagenases in rheumatoid arthritis (Woolley et al, 1977(Woolley et al, , 1978. Concurrently, the genetic basis for such common forms of polyarthritis as rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis and the evidence implicating the HLA antigens in the origin of these diseases (Brewerton et al, 1973;see D. A. Brewerton (Brewerton, 1978) at page 117) have been under intensive study in experiments that move more and more towards an indictment of microbiological agents such as Klebsiella pneumoniae as initiating factors (Ebringer et al, 1978).…”