Project description:Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic and systemic disease of unknown etiology, is characterized by hyperplasia of synovial cells, which ultimately lead to the destruction of cartilage and bone. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms that lead to RA, we analyzed synovial cells established from patient with RA by oligonucleotide microarrays. Gene expression profiles reveal a novel pathophysiologic function of RA synovial cells as a generator of oxidative stress, and a self-defense mechanism against self-generated oxidative stress. Experiment Overall Design: We isolated synovial cell culture from patients with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. Fibroblast from patient with osteoarthritis was used for the reference.
Project description:Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a complex and clinically heterogeneous autoimmune disease. Microarray analysis of 83 synovial samples provides insight into the expression-level differences between patients at the site of disease activity. Synovial samples from Rheumatoid Arthritis patients were obtained during joint resection and profiled using microarrays.
Project description:Cryopreserved synovial fluid mononuclear cells from three patients with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis were thawed and stained for surface antibodies, then fixed and stained for intracellular granzyme K and granzyme B. CD8 T cells with the following expression patterns were then isolated by FACS.
Project description:The destruction of bone and cartilage results in a loss of joint functionality, critically impairing the quality of life in arthritis patients. Synovial fibroblasts (SFs) critically contribute to the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) by acquiring either a pro-inflammatory or tissue-destructive phenotype. To explore the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenic fibroblast phenotype in arthritis, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) on the synovial cells which were isolated from collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) mice.
Project description:Autoimmune rheumatic diseases are complex disorders, whose etiopathology is attributed to a crosstalk between genetic predisposition and environmental factors. Both variants of autoimmune susceptibility genes and environment are involved in the generation of aberrant epigenetic profiles in a cell-specific manner, which ultimately result in dysregulation of expression. Furthermore, changes in miRNA expression profiles also cause gene dysregulation associated with aberrant phenotypes. In rheumatoid arthritis, several cell types are involved in the destruction of the joints, synovial fibroblasts being among the most important. In this study we performed DNA methylation and miRNA expression screening of a set of rheumatoid arthritis synovial fibroblasts and compared the results with those obtained from osteoarthritis patients with a normal phenotype. DNA methylation screening allowed us to identify changes in novel key target genes like IL6R, CAPN8 and DPP4, as well as several HOX genes. A significant proportion of genes undergoing DNA methylation changes were inversely correlated with expression. miRNA screening revealed the existence of subsets of miRNAs that underwent changes in expression. Integrated analysis highlighted sets of miRNAs that are controlled by DNA methylation, and genes that are regulated by DNA methylation and are targeted by miRNAs with a potential use as clinical markers. Our study enabled the identification of novel dysregulated targets in rheumatoid arthritis synovial fibroblasts and generated a new workflow for the integrated analysis of miRNA and epigenetic control. Comparison between the DNA methylation levels of synovial fibroblasts isolated from 6 Osteoarthritis and 6 Rheumatoid arthritis patients isolated from synovial tissues at the time of joint replacement. Bisulphite converted DNA from the 12 samples were hybridised to the Illumina Infinium 450k Human Methylation Beadchip