ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting 2012: Can Studying Anticitrullinated Protein Antibodies Put Us on Track to Stop RA?

There is ongoing tension between discovery-driven research and the traditional hypothesis-driven research, when the goal should be to merge them, Dr. Brenner said.

A recent example of this merging can be seen in the lab of Vijray Kuchroo, DVM, PhD, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, where Dr. Kuchroo and collaborators have used new tools to analyze the role of genes in the differentiation of TH17 cells, which are important players in RA. That led to the discovery that serum and glucocorticoid-inducible kinase 1 (SGK-1) are closely linked to that process.

SGK-1 is a regulator of sodium channels, and researchers later found that mice on a high-salt diet showed “measurably enhanced” TH17 cell differentiation.

“The new technologies and new tools that we have really aren’t in conflict with the old, hypothesis-driven approaches that some of us know and love,” Dr. Brenner said. “But they really work together with it and allow us to discover new things.”

Thomas Collins is a freelance medical journalist based in Florida.

References

1. Lundberg K, Bengtsson C, Kharlamova N, et al. Genetic and environmental determinants for disease risk in subsets of rheumatoid arthritis defined by the anticitrullinated protein/peptide antibody fine specificity profile. Ann Rheum Dis. 2012 June 1. [Epub ahead of print]
2. Malmström V, Amara K, Meffre E, et al. Generation and characterization of monoclonal anti-citrullinated antibodies from single RA synovial B cells. Ann Rheum Dis. 2012;71(suppl 3):315.
3. Amara K, Steen J, Murray F, et al. Monoclonal IgG antibodies (ACPAs) from synovial fluid B cells of rheumatoid arthritis patients—antigen-driven affinity maturation and cross reactivity. Arthritis Rheum. 2012;64(suppl):S1091.
4. Hughes-Austin JM, Deane KD, Derber LA, et al. Multiple cytokines and chemokines are associated with rheumatoid arthritis-related autoimmunity in first-degree relatives without rheumatoid arthritis: Studies of the Aetiology of Rheumatoid Arthritis (SERA). Ann Rheum Dis. 2012 Aug 21. [Epub ahead of print]
5. Wright GP, Notley CA, Xue SA, et al. Adoptive therapy with redirected primary regulatory T cells results in antigen-specific suppression of arthritis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2009;106:19078-19083.
6. Van Herwijnen MJ, Wieten L, van der Zee R, et al. Regulatory T cells that recognize a ubiquitous stress-inducible self-antigen are long-lived suppressors of autoimmune arthritis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2012;109:14134-14139.