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Abstract
Interferon (IFN)-λ1 is a newly described cytokine that is known for its proinflammatory activity in viral infection and in cancer. Because recent studies indicated that IFN-λ can influence significantly the innate and adaptive immune response, we studied IFN-λ in a prototypic systemic autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It was found that RA patients had higher mRNA levels in PBMC and higher serum levels of IFN-λ1 in comparison with healthy matched controls and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients. Although there was no correlation between serum IFN-λ1 and RA autoantibodies, RA patients that presented knee joint involvement displayed higher serum IFN-λ1 than patients without knee joint involvement, suggesting that abnormally elevated IFN-λ1 levels in RA can associate with knee joint disease.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the patients and volunteers for their participation in the study and thank all the rheumatologists in the Department of Rheumatology of the Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University who participated in the study.
Declaration of interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. This work was supported by the Shandong International Technical Cooperation Plan Project No. 4.