Investigating how immune cells can help sustain remission in rheumatoid arthritis
RHOTY 6. Investigating how immune cells can help sustain remission in rheumatoid arthritis
Understanding remission: how changes in dendritic cells may transform RA care.
Researchers from the University of Glasgow have looked at immune cells that live in in the joints. They discovered that a type of immune cell called a dendritic cell provides a protective shield in healthy joints, and that this shield is doesn’t work as well in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), even in those in disease remission. They also showed that the failure to fully restore this shield may mean that remission is not stable in RA.
“We are providing an example of how synovial tissue in a stable condition of remission looks, which means that in a clinical trial—where new drugs that target inflammatory processes are tested—we can provide a blueprint or template of what remission should look like.”
These findings open new avenues for understanding how to keep remission in rheumatoid arthritis, which may lead to new approaches for treating active RA and preventing painful flare-ups, ultimately improving patients’ quality of life.
“In the long term, we are hoping to provide new drug targets so that we can transform the remission that is currently unstable into stable remission—something that resembles a cure.”
This work was led by Professor Mariola Kurowska-Stolarska and Professor Stefano Alivernini along with first authors Dr Lucy MacDonald, Dr Aziza Elmesmari, Dr Domenico Somma and Dr Jack Frew at the Universities of Glasgow and The Gemelli University Hospital. It was funded by Arthritis UK.
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