Figure 4

Level of sPLA2 enzyme activity in MS patients with active or stable disease compared to controls (see Table 1). All measurements were made using 600 μM substrate and normalized to the average control value. There was a significant 4 and 6-fold increase in PLA2 activity compared to controls in the stable and active MS patients respectively, (p = 0.049*; 0.0019**, for comparison with controls, Mann Whitney test). Treated and untreated stable patients were grouped since their average levels of active enzyme were almost identical (see text). Patients with active disease were mostly undergoing treatment with beta-interferon (9/12, Table 1).