A glucose-6-phosphate isomerase peptide induces T and B cell-dependent chronic arthritis in C57BL/10 mice: arthritis without reactive oxygen species and complement.

The epitope induced arthritis with high severity and incidence in both B10.Q (21 of 21 tested) and B10.Q.Ncf1*/* mice (17 of 20 tested). Histopathologic analysis of the paws from mice immunized with the epitope 30 days earlier showed that B10.Q.Ncf1*/* mice developed severely inflamed synovium and erosive destruction of bone and cartilage whereas B10.Q mice developed mild arthritis with only moderate synovium infiltration. B-cell and T cell-deficient mice on B10.Q.Ncf1*/* background demonstrated resistance to epitope-induced arthritis (0/12 for B-/- mice and 0/10 for T-/- mice). In addition, mice deficient in C5 were not susceptible to the disease (0/7), whereas C5 WT litter mates were (8/12). When C5-deficient mice carried the Ncf1 mutation, they were as susceptible to arthritis as were C5-sufficient Ncf1*/* mice with 20/27 and 7/8 mice developing the disease respectively.