{"doi":"10.17615/zs8f-nq19","title":"Bacterial cell wall polymers (peptidoglycan-polysaccharide) cause reactivation of arthritis.","abstract":"Intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of peptidoglycan-polysaccharide derived from group A streptococci (PG-APS) causes chronic arthritis with spontaneous remissions and exacerbations. We hypothesized that, following i.p. injection, PG-APS released from hepatic stores mediated spontaneous recurrences of arthritis. We tested whether transplanted livers with large amounts of PG-APS were able to reactivate quiescent arthritis. Saline-loaded (group 1) or PG-APS-loaded (group 2) livers were transplanted into rats which had been injected intra-articularly 10 days earlier with PG-APS in one joint and saline in the other. A comparison was made with the arthritis that occurred in rats injected i.p. with PG-APS which did not receive transplants (group 3). Arthritis was monitored by serial measurement of joint diameters. Transplantation of saline-loaded livers (group 1) caused no reactivation of arthritis. However, transplantation of PG-APS-loaded livers (group 2) reactivated arthritis (P < 0.0001). Injection of PG-APS i.p. (group 3) induced the most-severe arthritis. PG-APS levels in plasma decreased with time, and PG-APS accumulated in the spleen in groups 2 and 3. Plasma and hepatic levels of PG-APS in rats injected i.p. with PG-APS were greater than levels in rats transplanted with PG-APS-loaded livers, which in turn were greater than levels in rats with saline-loaded livers. Plasma tumor necrosis factor did not correlate with recurrence of arthritis. Transplantation with PG-APS-loaded livers induced reactivation of arthritis in preinjured joints. The extent of arthritis was proportional to hepatic PG-APS content. Reactivation of arthritis may be mediated by slow release of liver-sequestered PG-APS or cytokines (not tumor necrosis factor) released by the liver.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":143035,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9582,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":293662,"name":"The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:17:34.768426Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}