Grant: Project Grant

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a lifelong inflammatory condition that affects most joints, with chronic pain and swelling leading to joint damage with bone destruction and disability. Medication serves to control the inflammation, but existing treatments cannot totally prevent the long-term bone destruction. The objective of our project is to identify novel biomarkers predicting joint damage in RA; these biomarkers will facilitate fast, non-invasive, accurate, and early detection of high-risk patients as well as the development of new drugs and individualized treatment for RA. MicroRNAs regulate various genes and play a role in the pathogenesis of many diseases, including RA. Their level will be measured in osteoclasts (the cells responsible for bone destruction) and blood of the patients at the onset of arthritis. All patients will be followed up for 30 months and bone erosion will be evaluated in hand and foot X-ray images. We will assess the relationship between microRNA levels in osteoclasts at disease onset and the bone destruction rate in RA, as well as the correlation with their serum levels a more convenient tissue for clinical diagnostics. Our team includes three rheumatologists with long-established expertise in bone biology and RA and experts in epigenetics and biostatistics, who position us favorably for a successful outcome of the proposed project. Even within a single disease such as RA, patients markedly differ in their clinical course and outcomes. Establishing an individual's prognosis could allow physicians to identify patients at risk of bone destruction and to promptly initiate an aggressive (and more targeted) therapeutic strategy to prevent devastating damage to joints and the resulting disability.