Tiing Jen Loh

3 weeks ago | jbc.org | Tiing Jen Loh |Ravi Sharma |Lars Klareskog

IntroductionRheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a T cell-mediated autoimmune disease which affects primarily the joints, and its progression leads to significant morbidity and reduced life expectancy. The disease has a prevalence of 0.5% worldwide and over 500,000 people in Australia (1,2). A hallmark characteristic of RA is the presence of anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA) in sera, for which >70% of the RA patients being ACPA seropositive in established RA and prior to disease onset (3-9).