RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Cytokine as New Rheumatoid Arthritis Target
JF Science's STKE
JO Sci. STKE
FD American Association for the Advancement of Science
SP tw88
OP tw88
DO 10.1126/stke.3252006tw88
VO 2006
IS 325
YR 2006
UL http://stke.sciencemag.org/content/2006/325/tw88.abstract
AB Rheumatoid arthritis is a debilitating autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation of the joints that affects millions of people. Joosten et al. report that a recently characterized cytokine, interleukin-32 (IL-32), appears to have an important role in the human disease. Tissue samples from patients with rheumatoid arthritis showed increased expression of IL-32 compared with that in control samples. The abundance of IL-32 correlated with markers of inflammation. Injection of human IL-32 into the knee joint of C57/B16 mice caused swelling and influx of inflammatory cells. IL-32 can induce expression of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in cultured cells, and TNF-α is a major contributor to chronic joint inflammation. IL-32 appeared to exert its inflammatory effects through TNF-α, because injection of IL-32 failed to cause swelling of joints in TNF-α knockout mice. Together, the results from human patients and animal studies lead the authors to conclude that elucidation of mechanisms to reduce activity of IL-32 provides a new strategy for development of therapies that may benefit patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. L. A. B. Joosten, M. G. Netea, S.-H. Kim, D.-Y. Yoon, B. Oppers-Walgreen, T. R. D. Radstake, P. Barrera, F. A. J. van de Loo, C. A. Dinarello, W. B. van den Berg, IL-32, a proinflammatory cytokine in rheumatoid arthritis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 103, 3298-3303 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]