This research was concerned with the measurement of latent matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) activity in serum and synovial fluid (SF) of rheumatoid arthritis patients, and evaluation the effect of some factors like gender, age, geographical place and smoking on the enzyme activity. The study included (158) patients (132 female, 26 male) aged from (19-83) year, attending the rheumatology clinic at Ibn Sina teaching hospital in Nineveh Governorate. Sixty healthy volunteers of matched age and gender were utilized as control. The results showed that the activity of enzyme was significantly different between the SF and the serum of patients with RA (586.85 ± 40.89 ng/ml, vs. 249.45 ± 61.11 ng/ml; P< 0001) respectively, and between serum of RA patients and serum of control (249.45 ± 61.11 ng/ml, vs. 125.46± 54.88; P< 001) respectively. The results indicated that the number of rheumatoid arthritis females were more than males by (5) times and it is most common after the age between 40 th and 50 th years. Moreover, the results showed that the number of patients who live in urban places is higher than that in rural places. The study, also, showed that the enzyme activity was significantly increased among smoker patients. Finally the results showed that there was no significant effect of age, gender and geographic place on the enzyme activity.

This study included the isolation of the enzyme Matrix Metalloprotrinase-1 (MMP-1; Collagenase-1) from serum of healthy individual and synovial fluid (SF) of a patient with rheumatoid arthritis using different techniques. After precipitation of proteins using saturated ammonium sulfate, two porteinous components had been isolated by gel filtration chromatography. It was found that only the first peak has high activity of latent-MMP-1. The apparent molecular weights of MMP-1 in serum and SF using gel filtration chromatography was found to be (47752 ± 816 and 48194 ± 707) dalton respectively. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to show the extent of purity. The main maximum of the enzyme from serum and SF appeared at retention times (1.652 and 1.65) minutes respectively compared with the retention time of standard enzyme at (1.571) minutes. The approximate molecular weight of latent-MMP-1 by HPLC technique, in serum and SF were found (48067 and 48033) dalton respectively. The study included, also, the effect of some material compounds on the activity of latent-MMP-1. The results revealed that the addition of ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid (EDTA), 2,4-dinitrophenol, sodium azide, potassium oxalate, mercaptoethanol (MEH), glutathione (GSH), cystein and healthy human serum decreased the activity of latent-MMP-1, while the addition of NaCl, MgSO 4 , CoCl 2 , CaCl 2 , CuSO 4 , ZnSO 4 , HgCl 2 and pepsin increases the activity of enzyme.