anti-CCP

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a severe inflammatory disease with a progressive course that affects mainly the joints, whose etiology is still unknown and that affects about 1% of the population, with higher incidence in women.With the recent introduction of newly discovered drugs, it is possible to prevent permanent damage to joints, provided that the disease is diagnosed in its early stages.Among the laboratory tests, the rheumatoid factor (RF) is characterized by good sensitivity (about 75%) but it is not always detected in the initial phase of the disease; the specificity of the test, moreover, is relatively low, as patients with other rheumatic, chronic inflammatory or infectious diseases can be positive for RF.The finding that RA patients often produce antibodies against citrullinated peptides and proteins was a major advance both in understanding the mechanisms that trigger the disease and in the early diagnosis of the disease.Citrulline is a “non-standard” amino acid that forms in the inflammatory environment as a result of the action of the enzyme peptidiliargininine deaminase on arginine residues present in proteins.Anti-citrullinated peptides are produced locally in the synovium of RA patients. The introduction of new immunoassays based on specially selected cyclic citrullinated peptides (CCP), allowed to develop tests with sensitivity equal to or better than traditional RF, but with a much higher specificity.In addition to this, it was demonstrated that the presence of anti-CCP is both an early marker of AR (anti-CCP can also be found up to 10 years before the onset of symptoms) and a marker of the severity of the disease.DIESSE Diagnostica Senese SpA is offering the new second generation anti-CCP Chorus kit to complete its line of tests for the serological diagnosis of systemic inflammatory diseases, in the convenient and practical single determination format.

Method:

Immunoenzymatic method for the qualitative determination of IgG antibodies against cyclic citrullinated peptides in human serum, using a disposable device applied on the Chorus and Chorus TRIO instruments.The test is based on the ELISA principle (Enzyme Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay) which uses the reaction between the antibodies present in the tested sample and the immobilized antigen bound to solid phases.The immunoglobulins bind to the antigen through incubation with diluted human serum.The disposable devices contain all the reagents to perform the test when applied on the Chorus instruments. The result is expressed in Arbitrary Units (AU/ml) for quantitative test.