Interleukin-22 and rheumatoid arthritis: Emerging role in pathogenesis and therapy

Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disorder characterized by synovial inflammation and resultant progressive joint damage. It has become increasingly evident that cytokines play an important role in the pathogenesis of RA. Interleukin-22 (IL-22) is a member of the IL-10 cytokine family. Recent findings suggest that not only the expression of IL-22 is abnormal both in RA patients and in arthritis mice but also the aberrant IL-22 performs significantly in disease onset of RA. In this paper, we focus on the critical role of IL-22 in RA. Hopefully, the information obtained may lead to a better understanding of the pathogenesis and development of novel therapeutic strategies for this systemic autoimmune disease.

• Autoimmune
• cytokine
• inflammation
• interleukin-22
• rheumatoid arthritis

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no financial or commercial conflict of interest. Our work is supported by the Foundation of Anhui Provincial Education Department (No. KJ2012A156) and the National Science Foundation of China (No. 81273526).