Pediatric Rheumatology Online Journal → June 2003 → Epidemiology, Classification, Immunology and Immunogenetics → Abstract #8

GENE EXPRESSION ANALYSIS OF SYSTEMIC ONSET JUVENILE ARTHRITIS BLOOD

V Pascual,^1,2 L Bennett,^1,2 F Allantaz,² E Arce,^1,2 Y Sardani,¹ J Banchereau,² K Palucka.²

¹Pediatrics, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX; ²Baylor Institute for Immunology Research, Dallas, TX

Systemic Onset Juvenile Chronic Arthritis (SOJCA) remains one of the most enigmatic pediatric rheumatic diseases, as no autoantibody or HLA associations exist to help diagnose and/or categorize these patients. Although the disease can be self limited, about half of the patients develop a chronic, polyarticular type of arthritis that may be very difficult to control with available therapies. In order to gain insight into the pathogenesis of this disease, we have analyzed the number and phenotypic characteristics of the blood lymphocyte, monocyte and dendritic cell populations from these patients. Additionally, we have performed global gene expression analysis using blood PBMC RNA to hybridize Affymetrix U133A gene arrays. Our array samples included 31 SOJCA patients. One third of the patients were in remission, one third had systemic symptoms and the remaining one third had polyarticular arthritis with no systemic involvement at the time of analysis. The gene expression analysis from these patient's PBMCs was compared to those of a) healthy controls, b) a similar number of children with other types of juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA), c) children with systemic infections. Two sets of genes, one common to JCA patients and one unique to SOJCA patients were identified after applying statistical corrections to the analysis. The results of these studies yield new information on the pathogenesis of SOJCA.