Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về y học được đăng trên tạp chí y học General Psychiatry cung cấp cho các bạn kiến thức về ngành y đề tài: Interleukin-7 deficiency in rheumatoid arthritis. | Arthritis Research Therapy Vol 7 No 1 Leonard Commentary Interleukin-7 deficiency in rheumatoid arthritis Warren J Leonard Laboratory of Molecular Immunology National Heart Lung and Blood Institute National Institutes of Health Bethesda Maryland USA Corresponding author Warren J Leonard wjl@ Published 20 December 2004 Arthritis Res Ther 2005 7 42-43 DOI ar1492 2004 BioMed Central Ltd See related research by Ponchel et al. page 47 http content 7 1 R80 Abstract Interleukin-7 IL-7 is a stromal factor that is crucial for the development of T lymphocytes in humans and mice and also B lymphocytes in mice. IL-7 can act as a T cell growth factor as well as a critical anti-apoptotic survival factor. The essential non-redundant role of this cytokine for T cell development in vivo is indicated by the phenotype of murine knockout models as well as by humans with a T-B NK form of severe combined immunodeficiency SCID resulting from mutations in IL-7 receptor a chain. IL-7 deficiency has now been found in patients with rheumatoid arthritis a finding that relates not only to the T-lymphocyte status in this disease but also to the ability of patients with rheumatoid arthritis to recover from therapy-induced lymphopenia. Rheumatoid arthritis RA is one of the most common human autoimmune diseases with a prevalence of about 1 . Because of this high prevalence as well as the severely debilitating nature of the disease considerable efforts have been devoted to the treatment of RA. In the current issue of this journal Ponchel and colleagues 1 investigate the basis for the prolonged lymphopenia of CD4 T cells after lymphocyte-depleting therapy specifically of patients with RA in comparison with other disorders and report that interleukin-7 IL-7 is depleted. The successful treatment of RA remains an area of considerable challenge. Therapeutic approaches in the past several decades have included corticosteroids methotrexate sulfasalazine .
