Volume 14 Issue 7, July 2018

The largest study to date on the genetics of hip and knee osteoarthritis (OA) has yielded new associations with genes encoding a cytokine, a kinase and a transcriptional repressor, as well as genetic correlations with other diseases. Can these clues help to unravel details of the pathogenesis of OA?

The application of new technologies including RNA sequencing and machine learning to the analysis of synovial tissue is yielding new insights into the pathology of rheumatoid arthritis, with potential implications for the clinical management of the disease.

The success of intravenous immunoglobulin immunotherapy in autoimmune diseases has inspired the development of novel Fc-based therapeutics, in particular, multimerized polyvalent Fc molecules. A new study reports that a recombinant IgG1 Fc hexamer alleviates acute and chronic autoimmune diseases in mice.

The development of cartilage-penetrating therapies relies on an in-depth understanding of the biophysical properties of this complex tissue. In this Review, knowledge accumulated over 50 years is synthesized to reveal the key principles of solute transport in cartilage.

Endothelial dysfunction is thought to be an important contributor to the increased risk of cardiovascular diseases seen in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Microvascular endothelial dysfunction could be a useful predictive marker of cardiovascular events in early rheumatoid arthritis.

Biomarkers are urgently needed to improve diagnosis and patient care in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Jimenez and colleagues discuss the current state of biomarkers for SSc and provide an update on how new biomarkers could make personalized medicine a reality.

Vascular and obstetric antiphospholipid syndrome are associated with the same pathogenic antiphospholipid antibodies but differ with respect to their associated clinical manifestations. The expression and distribution of β2 glycoprotein I, the main target of antiphospholipid antibodies, might explain these differences.