RA-MAP: mapping molecular immunological landscapes in early rheumatoid arthritis and healthy vaccine recipients [small RNA SEQUENCING]

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disorder with poorly defined aetiology characterised by synovial inflammation with variable disease severity and drug responsiveness. To investigate the peripheral blood immune cell landscape of RA, we performed comprehensive clinical and molecular profiling of 267 RA patients and 52 vaccine recipient controls for up to 18 months to establish a high quality sample biobank including plasma, serum, peripheral blood cells, urine, genomic DNA, RNA from whole blood, lymphocyte and monocyte subsets. We have performed extensive multi-omic immune phenotyping, including genomic, metabolomic, proteomic, transcriptomic and autoantibody profiling. We anticipate that these detailed clinical and molecular data will serve as a fundamental resource offering insights into disease pathogenesis, progression and therapeutic response, ultimately contributing to the development and application of targeted therapies for RA. Overall design: Patients were clinically profiled for 18 months with a variety of data taken every 3 months, microarray and small RNA-sequencing was performed at baseline and six-month timepoints.