Volume 16 Issue 6, June 2020

Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs) are heterogeneous conditions, and the optimal way to classify patients and divide them into subgroups remains unclear. Could machine learning techniques be the answer to the problem of defining homogeneous disease phenotypes, enabling stratified treatment approaches and the formulation of future IIM classification criteria?

Peptidylarginine deiminases (PADs) citrullinate proteins, thereby creating the targets of the autoimmune response in rheumatoid arthritis; yet, in some individuals, PADs themselves can be the targets of immune responses. The mechanisms behind this complex relationship are unravelled in this Review.

Fibroblast-like synoviocytes in rheumatoid arthritis have an aggressive phenotype caused, in part, by epigenetic imprinting, which contributes to various pathological processes. Understanding the mechanisms underlying the cell abnormalities and phenotypes, including their spatial and temporal differences, could lead to new therapies.

In this Perspective article, the authors recount the earliest stages of translational research into IL-6 biology and the subsequent development of therapeutic IL-6 pathway inhibitors for the treatment of autoimmune rheumatic diseases and potentially numerous other indications.