Maladapted bone marrow niches drive rheumatoid arthritis pathology

Rheumatoid arthritis is a condition where the body’s defence system attacks the joints by mistake. This can cause pain, swelling and flare-ups. This project looks at the role of the bone marrow, the soft tissue inside bones that makes immune cells, in rheumatoid arthritis to learn how the bone marrow changes during disease and whether this could lead to better treatments. 

Research overview

Rheumatoid arthritis is an auto-immune condition where the immune system gets confused and starts to attack healthy tissues in the body. This can cause pain, swelling and stiffness in your joints. 

Although rheumatoid arthritis is usually thought of as a disease of the joints, the immune cells causing this inflammation are produced in the bone marrow, a soft and spongy tissue inside our bones. 

This research will study samples from people with rheumatoid arthritis and use mouse models to understand how the bone marrow changes during arthritis. The goal is to learn whether these changes cause future flare-ups. This could help us find new ways to treat rheumatoid arthritis. 

What is the aim of this research?

This research aims to understand whether joint inflammation changes the way bone marrow produces immune cells, particularly ones likely to drive future flares. 

Why is this research important?

Although treatments for rheumatoid arthritis have improved enormously, many people still experience repeated flares and progressive joint damage over time. This research will investigate whether inflammation leaves behind longer-lasting changes in the immune system that make flares more likely. If we can better understand these changes, we may eventually be able to prevent flares before they happen, rather than only reacting once symptoms appear. 

In the long term, this research will help us better understand the root causes of chronic inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis, rather than only treating its symptoms. 

What are we doing?

Studying bone marrow from people with rheumatoid arthritis

The team will study bone marrow samples from people with rheumatoid arthritis. They will look at how immune cells are made and whether they behave differently during inflammation. 

Studying changes over time in mice 

The team will also study mice with inflammatory arthritis. This helps researchers look at bone marrow at different stages of the disease, including during flares and after symptoms have improved. They will study changes in immune cell production over time. 

Looking at bone marrow structure 

The team will take detailed images of bone marrow from mice with arthritis. These images will show whether the structure of the tissue has changed during disease. This may help explain changes in how the bone marrow makes immune cells.

Testing how bone marrow affects disease 

The team will transplant bone marrow from mice with arthritis into healthy mice. They will then see whether this makes arthritis worse when those healthy mice develop the condition. This will help show whether bone marrow previously affected by arthritis can influence future disease. 

What happens next?

Early research suggests that bone marrow becomes inflamed during arthritis. The research also found that bone marrow may stay inflamed even after arthritis symptoms have improved. This suggests that bone marrow may hold on to a “memory” of inflammation. If this is true, it could help explain why some flare-ups happen again and why they may be severe. 

The next step is to build a clearer picture of how bone marrow changes in rheumatoid arthritis. If the research shows that bone marrow plays an important role, it could open the door to new treatments that target the disease in a different way. The long-term hope is to help people have fewer flare-ups, less pain and better health over time.