Rheumatology Advance Access originally published online on September 25, 2007
Rheumatology 2007 46(12):1858-1859; doi:10.1093/rheumatology/kem254
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
Cartilage oligomeric matrix protein in systemic sclerosis
1First Department of Internal Medicine, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, 2Sapporo Medical University, Japan
Correspondence to: Motohisa Yamamoto, First Department of Internal Medicine, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, South 1- West 16, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 0608543, Japan. E-mail: mocha@cocoa.plala.or.jp
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
SIR, Few biomarkers of systemic sclerosis (SSc) are useful, so physicians must largely depend on physical findings. However, we found that cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) appears clinically informative in patients with SSc. Here, we describe the relationship between COMP and SSc.
COMP is an extracellular glycoprotein belonging to the thrombospondin gene family that forms a disulfide-linked pentamer and is predominantly found in cartilage, tendons, ligaments and bone growth plates. COMP binds to type II collagen fibres and stabilizes