Gene expression analysis of vascular pathophysiology related to anti-TNF treatment in rheumatoid arthritis

Our goal was to find correlations between gene expression patterns and impaired vascular pathophysiolgy in rheumatoid arthritis Patients with rheumatoid arthritis were recruited and venous blood samples were collected, then peripheral blood mononuclear cells were separated. After RNA isoltaion, we used Affymetrix PrimeView arrays to obtain whole gene expression data. Samples of 19 patients with rheumatoid arthritis were examined. Sub-groups based the following clinical parameters flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD), pulse-wave velocity (PWV) and common carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) status were created and differentially expressed genes were determined in each sub-groups.