Search results for "ARTHRITIS"

A topological look at human trabecular bone tissue

2017

Bone quality is affected by trabecular architecture at microscopic level. Various abnormalities of bone tissue lead to altered strength and to an increased susceptibility to fracture, such as Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis, two major health burdens of our society. These are two complex musculoskeletal diseases that mainly concern bone tissue. In the last twenty years, there has been a growing interest in finding an appropriate topological model for the micro-architecture of trabecular bone tissue. In particular, we prove that these models involve general topological spaces. The appropriate notion to deal with is that of CW-complex.

2021

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease and patients are under an increased risk for cardiovascular (CV) events and mortality. The increased CV risk for patients with SLE seems to be caused by a premature and accelerated atherosclerosis, attributable to lupus-specific risk factors (i.e., increased systemic inflammation, altered immune status), apart from traditional CV risk factors. To date, there is no established experimental model to explore the pathogenesis of this increased CV risk in SLE patients. Methods: Here we investigated whether MRL-Faslpr mice, which develop an SLE-like phenotype, may serve as a model to study lupus-mediated v…

Gut-derived CD8+ tissue-resident memory T cells are expanded in the peripheral blood and synovia of SpA patients

2019

We read with interest the recently published paper from Qaiyum et al 1 demonstrating a novel integrin-expressing mature Crohn's disease (CD)8+ T cell population defined as CD49a+CD103+β7+CD29+ cells in the synovial fluids of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients. Although the authors did not analyse gut samples from AS patients, they speculate that these cells might be gut-derived cells. Interestingly, as stated by authors, the transcriptional and phenotypic signature of these cells is reminiscent of human tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM). TRM are a subset of cells important as the first line of defence from infection in mucosal tissues, never studied in spondyloarthritis (SpA).2 For cla…

Is the pelvis-thorax coordination a valuable outcome instrument to assess patients with Hip osteoarthritis?

2020

Objective: The evaluation of the disease severity in hip osteoarthritis (OA) patients being currently based on subjective instruments. It would be of interest to develop more objective instruments, for example based on gait analysis. The aims of this study were to explore if pelvis-thorax coordination parameters could be valuable instrument outcomes to achieve this evaluation by assessing their reliability, discriminant capacity and responsiveness. Methods: Three groups of subjects; healthy, hip OA patients with severe disease (defined as indication to surgery), hip OA patients with less severe disease (no indication to surgery) were included. Hip OA patients with severe disease were evalua…

Secukinumab efficacy in patients with PsA is not dependent on patients' body mass index

2020

We read with interest the recently published paper from McGonagle et al 1 analysing the role of interleukin (IL)-17A in axial spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis (PsA). The meta-analysis and functional study provided by the authors highlighted the efficacy of IL-17A block by secukinumab in the treatment of PsA. However, there is no mention of the role of body mass index (BMI), if any, in influencing the clinical response to secukinumab, given the lack of published data. PsA is a chronic inflammatory arthritis burdened by a series of metabolic comorbidities. Among them, obesity is very common in PsA, with a prevalence of 27%, as confirmed by a recent Spanish work.2 Obesity in PsA has b…

Disease-Specific and Common HLA and Non-HLA Genetic Markers in Susceptibility to Rheumatoid Arthritis, Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus and Multiple Sclerosis

2016

Autoimmune diseases cause numerous health and social problems throughout the world. The common spectrum of autoimmune diseases affect the majority of tissues within the body, including pancreatic beta cells in type 1 diabetes (T1DM), myelin surrounding nerve axons in Multiple sclerosis (MS) and synovial joint antigens in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). The diseases are likely caused by a complex interaction between multiple HLA- and non- HLA related genes and environmental factors. The well documented co-clustering of autoimmune diseases within families and individuals, together with apparent sharing of number risk genes between the diseases suggests at least some common mechanisms of autoimmune…

A cyclic peptide significantly improves thyroid function, thyrotropin-receptor antibodies and orbital mucine /collagen content in a long-term Graves’…

2021

BALB/c mice which received long-term immunizations of adenovirus (Ad) expressing thyrotropin receptor A-subunits (TSHR) developed stable Graves' disease (GD). TSHR-derived cyclic peptide 19 (P19) was identified as effective therapy in this model.In Ad-TSHR mice, we investigated shorter disease intervals up to 4 months for histological alterations of the orbits, fine tuning of anti-TSHR antibodies (Ab) and free thyroxine (fT4) hormone levels by using novel detection methods in an independent laboratory. Therapy (0.3 mg/kg P19 or vehicle) was given intravenously after the fourth Ad-TSHR immunization (week 11) and continued until week 19.Thyrotropin binding inhibitory immunoglobulins (TBII, br…

IL-17 for therapy.

2017

The cytokine IL-17 is now a target for an array of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies supposed to treat a variety of inflammatory diseases. The forerunner Secukinumab, an IL-17A neutralizing antibody, is meanwhile approved as first-line treatments for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis, and as second-line treatment for psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. Ixekizumab and Brodalumab, both also targeting the IL-17 pathway, were also recently approved by the FDA for plaque psoriasis. Using mice overexpressing IL-17A in a tissue of choice, we showed that the ectopic expression of this cytokine in keratinocytes resulted in a spontaneous and very strong form of psoriasis-like dermatitis…

Inactivation of the KSRP gene modifies collagen antibody induced arthritis.

2017

Abstract The KH type splicing regulatory protein (KSRP) is a nucleic acid binding protein, which negatively regulates the stability and/or translatability of many mRNA species encoding immune-relevant proteins. As KSRP is expressed in immune cells including T and B cells, neutrophils, macrophages and dendritic cells, we wanted to analyze its importance for the development of autoimmune diseases. We chose collagen antibody-induced arthritis (CAIA) as an appropriate autoimmune disease mouse model in which neutrophils and macrophages constitute the main effector cell populations. We compared arthritis induction in wild type (WT) and KSRP−/− mice and paws were taken for histological sections an…

Association between hypovitaminosis D and systemic sclerosis: True or fake?

2016

Abstract Background Vitamin D insufficiency/deficiency is considered a major factor triggering and enhancing several autoimmune disorders; hypovitaminosis D has been reported to be common in Systemic Sclerosis (SSc). Previous studies assessing vitamin D insufficiency/deficiency in SSc have been reviewed, and the relation with pathogenesis and clinical features has been examined. Content Eligibility criteria were: reporting measurement of Vitamin D serum levels in all participants and evaluating adult onset-SSc individuals as patients group. Results: The association between clinical features and low hormone levels is controversial. Manifold data have shown vitamin D insufficiency/deficiency …