Molecular discrimination of responders and nonresponders to anti-TNF alpha therapy in rheumatoid arthritis by etanercept.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

About 30% of rheumatoid arthritis patients fail to respond adequately to TNFalpha-blocking therapy. There is a medical and socioeconomic need to identify molecular markers for an early prediction of responders and nonresponders.

Methods

RNA was extracted from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 19 rheumatoid arthritis patients before the first application of the TNFalpha blocker etanercept as well as after 72 hours. Clinical response was assessed over 3 months using the 28-joint-count Disease Activity Score and X-ray scans. Supervised learning methods were applied to Affymetrix Human Genome U133 microarray data analysis to determine highly selective discriminatory gene pairs or triplets with prognostic relevance for the clinical outcome evinced by a decline of

SUBMITTER: Koczan D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2483439 | biostudies-literature | 2008

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature