Comparative analysis of synovial fluid and plasma proteomes in juvenile arthritis – Proteomic patterns of joint inflammation in early stage disease

Synovial fluid is a potential source of novel biomarkers for many arthritic disordersinvolving joint inflammation, including juvenile idiopathic arthritis. We first compared thedistinctive protein ‘fingerprints’ of local inflammation in synovial fluid with systemicprofiles within matched plasma samples. The synovial fluid proteome at the time of jointinflammation was then evaluated across clinical subgroups to identify early diseaseassociated proteins. We measured the synovial fluid and plasma proteomes using the two dimensional fluorescence difference gel electrophoresis approach. Image analysis software was used to highlight the expression levels of joint and subgroup associated proteins acrossthe study cohort (n=32). A defined subset of 30 proteins had statistically significantdifferences (p