[Study of volatile fatty acids in the blood of patients with periodic disease].

Microecological "failures" are an important pathogenetic factor of different diseases and, in the authors' opinion, periodic disease (PD) is one of them. PD is a recessive disease characterized by fever attacks and neutrophil-mediated serous inflammation. A genetic factor has been established to be responsible for half the cases of PD, the influence of non-hereditary factors, particularly a role of the host automicroflora in the genesis of an inflammatory process, has been little studied. The authors' early studies indicate that there are changes in the qualitative and quantitative composition of microbial molecules in the blood of patients with PD. The anaerobic bacterial metabolites that are volatile fatty acids (VFAs) represent biologically active substances that affect the growth of the microflora, on the one hand, and the host's immunological responsiveness, on the other. Out of VFAs, only is acetic acid detectable in small quantities in the blood of healthy individuals. The other VFAs, namely propionic, valeric, butyric, and caproic acids and their isomers, are absent. Gas chromatography was used for qualiitative and quantitative determination of the metabolites of anaerobic microorganisms in the blood of patients with PD (n = 13) during an attack and remission and in that of healthy volunteers (Armenians) (n = 5) of a control group from one Yerevan region. The blood samples from all the patients with PD displayed a significantly higher concentration of caproic acid while the latter was absent in the blood of the controls. This finding suggests that there is a specific shift in the structure of the microbiocenosis in patients with PD. It is conceivable that caproic acid plays a certain role in the pathogenesis of the disease under study. Further studies will deal with the association of some microbial molecules with the manifestation of an attack of PD, which may provide the key to the goal-oriented regulation of detected homeostatic disorders and to the management of the frequency of its attacks.