5. Cytokine regulation of rheumatoid arthritis Flashcards
What is Rheumatoid arthritis?
A chronic inflammatory condition driven by inflammation causes damage to joints, cartilage and bone.
What was the treatment for rheumatoid arthritis in 1890s Australia?
Sitting in a rotting whale carcass
What does most modern treatment for rheumatoid arthritis target?
Cytokine driven disease mechanisms
What is the prevalence of Rheumatoid arthritis?
- Around 1% of people worldwide
- Some populations like native Americans have up to 5%
- It affects >400,000 people in the UK.
- 3:1 female to male ratio (maybe due to pro or anti inflammatory effects of oestrogen.
- Typical onset is around 40-60 years old.
What makes Rheumatoid arthritis different from other arthritis?
It effects both sides of the body
What are the clinical features of rheumatoid arthritis?
- Swollen, painful and stiff joint movement.
- Symmetrical
- Progressive and irreversible disease causing bone and cartilage erosion that causes disability.
- Systemic inflammation results in co-morbidities like cardiovascular disease.
- Carries a mental burden of fatigue and depression.
- Bone on bone movement drive pain.
What systemic changes occur in rheumatoid arthritis?
- Autoreactivity is a pivotal step in the development of rheumatoid arthritis.
- A breach of tolerance causes autoantibodies in around 70% of patients.
- These antibodies are to Rheumatoid factor and anti-citrullinated protein antibodies
- Systemic inflammation causes an increase in CRP and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR).
What is rheumatoid factor?
An autoantibody to the Fc region of IgG
What are anti-citrullinated protein antibodies?
Autoantibodies to post translationally modified self proteins.
What local (joint) change occur in rheumatoid arthritis?
- Leukocytes infiltrate the synovium that line the inner surface of the joint
- Once the immune cells enter the joint there are interactions between them and the joint cells.
- Involved adaptive and innate immune cells and Tissue and tissue resident cells.
What is the synovium?
- The tissue that makes up the joint
- The synovium releases synovium fluid to lubricate the joints
What does immune cell infiltration to the joint in rheumatoid arthritis cause?
- Thickening of the synovium
- Thickening of the synovial lining
- Some cells get hyperactivated. This includes synoviocytes, fibroblasts and osteoclasts.
What are osteoclasts?
Cells that dissolve bone and cause bone erosion
What promotes the development of rheumatoid arthritis?
Risk factors: genetic or environmental
Initiation of autoimmunity
How are the genetic risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis found?
- using genome wide association studies.
- > 100 SNPs can increase the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.
- a single SNP is estimated to increase the risk 1-1.2 fold.
- Combinations of SNPs an interacts to increase the risk >40 fold.
What is the most significant SNP associated with rheumatoid arthritis?
- the “shared epitope” encoded by HLA-DRB1
- This is a 5 amino acid sequence motif in HLA-DRß
- It is associated with more severe disease, more autoantibodies and more erosive pathology.
- It is the basis of the shared epitope hypothesis.
What is the shared epitope hypothesis?
- rheumatoid arthritis is caused by the presentation of an arthritic antigen.
- Individuals with the shared epitope are more efficient at presenting the arthritic antigens to T cells.
- This is 1 hypothesis of RA.
What other non-HLA genes contain SNPs associated with rheumatoid arthritis?
- Genes for T cell function
- Cytokines
- Chemokines
- FOXO3
What does bioinformatics of the GWAS studies show about the genes that contain RA associated SNPs?
- Shows upregulation of immune system genes and cytokine signalling genes
- This tell us how these SNPs contribute to rheumatoid arthritis
What is PTPN2?
- A tyrosine phosphatase (PTP)
- It negatively regulates TCR and cytokine signalling.
- this shuts of the signalling
How are SNPs or loss of PTPN2 function associated with arthritis?
- shown in experimental mouse models.
- PTPN2 deficient or haploinsufficient mice have more severe arthritis.
- The disease is exacerbated through increased IL-17 production from CD4 cells and ectopic lymphoid structures in the inflamed synovium.
- There is increased IL-17 and IL-6.
- PTPN2 SNPs in only T cells is enough to develop disease.
What is FOXO3?
A transcription factor that suppresses inflammatory cytokine production by immune cells.
How is FOXO3 SNPs associated with rheumatoid arthritis?
- monocytes from people with the SNP make more FOXO3.
- This decreases production of IL-1ß, IL-6 and TNF.
- It increases production of IL-10 and TGFß.
- It is linked with a milder form of rheumatoid arthritis with a lower disease severity.
How do we know environmental factors contribute to the development of rheumatoid arthritis?
Monozygotic twins have a disease concordance of 12-15%. This shows something other then genetics contributes to disease.
What are the environmental risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis?
- Smoking
- Inflammation at mucosal sites
- Dust inhalation specifically silica
- Western diet
- Obesity
- Long-term alcohol consumption
- Low socioeconomic status
- Low education levels
- Sunshine due to UV-B and vitamin D.
How does dust (silica) inhalation increase risk of autoimmunity?
- Not sure
- Shown in firefighters or factory workers.
What inflammation at the mucosa is associated with rheumatoid arthritis?
- Gingivitis
- Periodontitis
What is the timeline of the development of rheumatoid arthritis?
- Starts as an individual with a risk determined by genetics.
- Preclinical development can happen up to 10 years before symptoms
- Presentation of symptoms and early signs of RA driven by joint inflammation.
What is the 2 hit hypothesis?
- The first hit of an autoimmune disease is an immunological hit that leads to a breach of tolerance.
- The patient seems healthy but they have an autoreactive response to self.
- At some point after this there is a 2nd hit.
- This leads to clinical onset of symptoms.
What is the 1st hit of autoimmune disease?
- This establishes pre-clinical disease.
- The generation of neo-antigens can activate autoimmunity.
- The neo-peptides are presented by APC to T cells.
What causes the generation neo-antigens?
- Local tissue stress at mucosal sites leads to the post-translational modification of self proteins.
- Mostly by citrullination
- Citrullinated proteins include intracellular proteins like histone and matrix proteins like collagen and fibronectin.
- This caused by smoking or peridontitis.
What is citrullination?
The enzymatic conversion of arginine to citrulline by peptidylarginine deiminase.
How does P.gingivalis cause citrullination?
- It makes some peptidylarginine deiminases.
- These can modify host proteins
What does the presentation of neo-antigens by APC to T cells cause?
- Generation of autoantibodies against Self proteins
- The establishes a “healthy” asymptomatic autoimmunity.
Autoantibodies in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Rheumatoid factor
Autoantibodies that bind to the Fc portion of the IgG
Autoantibodies in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Anti-citrullinated protein antibodies
- ACPA recognise citrullinated proteins
- This includes citrullinated aggrecan, vimentin and fibrinogen
Autoantibodies in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Anti-carbamylated protein antibodies
- Anti-CarP binds to proteins that contain homocitrulline residues generated during high cyanate levels.
- During inflammation there is high cyanate that generates homocitrulline from lysine
Autoantibodies in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Anti-peptidylarginine deiminase 4
- Anti-PAD4
- PAD4 can self citrullinate.
- This modifies the structure of the enzyme.
- This increases its recognition by human autoantibodies
- These antibodies also increases its catalytic efficiency.
Autoantibodies in Rheumatoid Arthritis: anti-BRAF
- It is a serine-threonine kinase.
- Part of the MAPK pathways
- Involved in proinflammatory signalling
What is the 2nd hit of autoimmune disease models?
- When you challenge mice with an antigen normally from a different species.
- Through mechanisms like molecular mimicry they induce autoimmunity.
- A second exposure to antigens or general inflammatories like LPS leads to established disease and true autoimmunity.
What is the 2nd hit of autoimmune disease in humans?
- We don’t know
- It could be due to vascular permeability due to systemic inflammation that allows cells to enter the synovial tissues and establish inflammation in the joints.
- It could also be microtrauma or transient infection. molecular mimicry, bystander activation and epitope spreading
What immune cells contribute to inflammation in the joints?
- Macrophages
- Monocytes
- Neutrophils
- Dendritic cells
- T cells
- B cells
- Plasma cells
What immune mediators contribute to inflammation in the joints?
- TNF
- IL-6
- IL-17
- IL-1
- RANKL
- GM-CSF
- chemokines
What tissue resident cells contribute to inflammation in the joints?
- Fibroblasts
- Osteoclasts
How do synovial fibroblasts contribute to inflammation in the joints?
- Release of cytokines and chemokines to sustain inflammation.
- Release of enzymes that erode cartilage (MMP1/3/9/13)
How do osteoclasts contribute to inflammation in the joints?
- These are specialist cells associated bone.
- They used carbonic anhydrase to make acid from water and carbon dioxide and release it into pits on the bone surface.
- This demineralises and dissolves the bone.
- They also produce enzymes that dissolve bone, like MMP9, MMP13 and cathepsin K
What are cytokines?
- They are intercellular communication molecules.
- They usually work over short distances.
- They cause particular biological activities in responsive cells like proliferation, recruitment, differentiation, effector function and survival or death
What do pro-inflammatory cytokines do?
- Activation
- Differentiation
- Trafficking and recruitment
- Proliferation
- Survival
- Effector functions
What do regulatory cytokines do?
- Immunosuppression
- Inhibitory actions
- Death
What are antagonistic cytokines?
Cytokines that inhibit other cytokines
What are synergistic cytokines?
- Cytokines that act with other cytokines
- Together the effect can be more then the individual combined.
What can cytokines trigger?
Downstream cascade effects
What are the pros of using cytokines as therapeutic targets?
- They are highly potent and produced at small amounts. This means low amounts of inhibitors are needed to neutralise them.
- They are extracellular. They are access to antibodies and to soluble antagonist receptors
- Many are unregulated at the site of inflammation so there are many targets.
- You can also target the receptor.
- They initiate cascades
What are the cons of using cytokines as therapeutic targets?
- There is potential and real redundancy. This means targeting 1 cytokines may not have an effect as another can take its place.
- They are not easily blocked by small molecule inhibitors unless you target the receptor downstream signalling.
How do you determine which of the multiple cytokines to use as a therapeutic target?
You look for cytokines that are driving and shaping the environment.
How was TNF determined to be a critical driver of Rheumatoid arthritis?
- Single cell cultures of inflamed synovium were made.
- The gene expression, cell types and cytokines present in the cultures was examined.
- They found high levels of T cells, macrophages, IL-1, IL-6, GM-CSF and CXCL8.
- They added an anti-TNF antibody.
- This caused a massive reduction in IL-1, IL-6, GM-CSF and chemokines.
- Targeting TNF has a knock on effect on other cytokines.
- It is a good treatment but doesn’t work in all patients.
What are keystone cytokines?
- Cytokines that are critical for driving different autoimmune diseases.
- Different cytokines can drive different pathologies.
- Some diseases are more dependant on certain cytokines than other diseases.
What did an experimental model of arthritis treated with anti-TNF antibodies show?
- Model was collagen-induced arthritis.
- Increasing doses of anti-TNF show improvement of disease.
- Compared to the control mouse, it looks better and is comparable to a normal healthy mouse.
How can TNF be targeted with therapeutic treatment?
- Anti-TNF monoclonal antibodies.
- Soluble TNF receptors.
What are anti-TNF monoclonal antibodies?
- Antibodies specific to TNF and block its function.
- It is often the first biologic drug of choice for a patient.
- Often used with methotrexate.
- eg Adalimumab and infliximab
What are soluble TNF receptors?
- A fusion protein of Ig Fc domain and the TNFR2.
- Generated by recombinant DNA technology.
- It binds to TNF and prevents its engaging with receptors on the cell surface.
- Often used in combination with methotrexate
- eg Etanercept
Why are we still developing new cytokines based therapies?
- Some current drugs have serious side effects.
- The current drugs are not 100% effective.
- New alternative drugs can give an advantage and improve treatment choices.
What is IL-6 classical signalling?
- IL-6 binds the IL-6R.
- IL-6R has no signalling capacity so it associates with the gp130 homodimer.
- gp130 does the down stream signalling.
- This is done via JAK and STAT signalling.
- This only happens on leukocytes and hepatocytes as they bare the IL-6R.
What is IL-6 trans-signalling?
- soluble IL-6R is generated either by alternative splicing of mRNA or cleavage by ADAM10/17 from the cell surface.
- sIL-6R can still bind gp130 and is an agonist so it is activating.
- gp130 is expressed on almost every cell, so it can activate almost every cell to produce IL-6.
- This is potentially dangerous and needs to be carefully regulated.
How is IL-6 trans-signalling regulated?
- Soluble gp130 is produced and circulates all the time.
- sgp130 binds to sIL-6/sIL-6R.
- This is done to prevent trans-signalling and could be used as a potential treatment.
How has soluble gp130 been shown to be a potential treatment for autoimmunity?
- When Th17 cells are differentiated in the presence of TGFß and IL-6 they expand normally and sgp130 cannot block this expansion.
- When Th17 cells are differentiated in the presence of TGFß and sIL-6/sIL-6R, you can totally block expansion of Th17 with soluble gp130-Fc.
How can you differentiate Th17 cells in culture?
Culture and activate them in the presence of TGFß and IL-6
Why is IL-6 trans-signalling a good target for treating rheumatoid arthritis?
- IL-6 trans-signalling is increased in inflamed tissues.
- This means there is lots of IL-6 trans-signalling in RA.
- sgp130 levels remain about the same.
- Administering higher doses of sgp130 increases the clinical score of RA and lowers inflammation.
What are the different therapies that target IL-6?
- anti-IL-6R blocks like tocilizumab are approved.
- Anti-IL-6 blockers are in clinical trials or have been approved like Olokizumab.
- IL-6/sIL-6R blockers like NI-1204 are recently licensed
What is a new way of targeting cytokine signalling?
Using JAK inhibitors that target downstream cytokine signalling
How do JAK inhibitors work?
- JAKs phosphorylate tyrosine residues in the cytokine receptor C terminal domain.
- This recruits STATs and phosphorylates them so they dimerise.
- STATs then locate to the nucleus and change gene expression.
- JAK is shared by many different cytokines so you can target many cytokines with 1 inhibitor.
- Jak inhibitors turn off the intracellular signalling pathway triggered by cytokine signalling
What are the pros of JAK inhibitors?
- They have a broader inhibitory profile.
- They are good for patients who have failed specific cytokine treatment
What are the cons of JAK inhibitors?
- Increased side effects as they are broader.
- Increased incidence of infection and cancer
What do JAK2 inhibitors target?
- ßc family cytokine receptors
- IL-3
- IL-5
- GM-CSF
What do JAK1 inhibitors target?
Type 2 interferons like IFNy
What do JAK3 inhibitors target?
- y chain family cytokine receptors.
- IL-2
- IL-4
- IL-7
- IL-9
- IL-15
- IL-23
What do TYK2 inhibitors target?
- IL-12 family: IL-12 and IL-23
- gp130 family: IL-6, IL-11 and IL-27
- IL-10 family: IL-10, IL-19, IL-20 and IL-22
- Type 1 interferons
What can determine the course of inflammation?
The balance between pro-inflammatory and regulatory cytokines determines the course of inflammation.
What anti-inflammatory cytokines are key in rheumatoid arthritis?
- IL-10
- IL-27
What is IL-27?
- A heterodimer of p28 and EBI3
- Its receptor is highly expressed on T cells in the joints of people with rheumatoid arthritis.
- IL-27 is protective in experimental inflammatory arthritis
What happens in an IL-27 knock out of experimental inflammatory arthritis?
- More inflammatory cell infiltration
- More bone erosion
- More severe arthritis.
- It shows that IL-27 is essential in regulating immunity and has dampening effects in RA.
How can IL-27 regulate Th17 cells in antigen-induced arthritis?
- Th17 cells are essential for driving the AIA disease model.
- The addition of IL-27 leads to reduced Th17 expansion to the point of almost total inhibition.
- This causes more Th1 cells but they don’t contribute to this model
- It shows regulatory cytokines have therapeutic potential
What cells express TNF in rheumatoid arthritis?
Monocytes
T cells
B cells
NK cells
Neutrophils
Mast cells
synovial fibroblasts
osteoblasts
What is the clinical use of anti-TNF?
- Effective treatment
- There are a number of TNF inhibitors of different modalities in use
- 1st anti-TNF drug approved for RA in 1998
What are the main functions of TNF?
- Monocyte activation and cytokines release
- Neutrophil priming, oxidative burst and apoptosis
- Inappropriate T cell activation and apoptosis
- Endothelial cell expression of adhesion molecules like VCAM-1
- Fibroblast MMP and cytokines release
What cells express IL-6 in rheumatoid arthritis?
Monocytes
macrophages
B cells
Mast cell
synovial fibroblasts
What is the clinical use of IL-6?
- Effective treatment
- 1st anti-IL-6R drug approved in RA in 2010
- Anti-IL-6 currently in clinical trials
- sgp130-fc in early clinical trials
What are the main functions of IL-6?
- B cell proliferation and antibody production
- T cell proliferation, differentiation, trafficking, effector function and survival.
- Hepatic acute-phase responses in systemic inflammation
- Increase VEGF expression which increases angiogenesis.
- Osteoclast differentiation via induction of RANKL expression
- Fibroblast MMP and cytokine release
What cell express IL-17 in rheumatoid arthritis?
Th17 cells
gamma-deta T cells
NK and NKT cells
synovial fibroblasts
What is the clinical use of IL-17?
- Low efficacy in clinical trials in RA
- Current trial testing efficacy in patients that show poor response to anti-TNF
What are the main functions of IL-17?
- Leukocyte recruitment
- Osteoclast differentiation via induction of RANKL expression
- Fibroblast MMP and cytokine release
- Increased angiogenesis
What cells produce IL-1 in rheumatoid arthritis?
Monocytes
B cells
synovial fibroblasts
chondrocytes
What is the clinical use of IL-1?
- Engineered version of soluble IL-1R antagonist 1st approved for rheumatoid arthritis in 2002
- Not recommended and limited use due to lower efficacy then other biological drugs.
What are the main functions of IL-1?
- Monocyte cytokine secretion
- Increased endothelial-cell adhesion molecule expression like VCAM-1
- Increased integrin expression on leukocytes
- Increased synovial fibroblast cytokine chemokine and MMP release.
- Decreased glycosaminoglycan synthesis. This is a critical part of cartilage
What cells produce RANKL?
- Osteoblasts
- CD4+ T cells
- Synovial fibroblasts
What is the role of RANKL in rheumatoid arthritis?
- It triggers osteoclast differentiation, maturation and activation.
- This causes osteoclasts to stick to a digest underlying bone mineral by releasing acids and collagenase.
- This increase bone resorption.
What cells produce IL-10 in rheumatoid arthritis?
Monocytes
T helper cells
B cells
Dendritic cells
Epithelial cells
What is the clinical use of IL-10?
- Recombinant IL-10 was safe to use but failed to improve disease in phase 1 clinical trials.
- modified IL-10 like Dekavil are currently being tested
What are the main functions of IL-10?
- Increases Treg and Breg maturation and effector function.
- Decreased fibroblast MMP release
- Decreased Dendritic cell activation and cytokine release
- Decreased MHC expression and energy expression
- Decreased synovial NLRP3 inflammasome activation so decreased IL-1ß and IL-33.
What is Dekavil?
- A fully human anti-inflammatory antibody
- consists of an F8 antibody fused to IL-10
- The F8 antibody is specific to fibronectin so it locates the drug to the inflamed joints and other inflamed tissues.
What cells express IL-27 in rheumatoid arthritis?
Monocytes
Macrophages
What are the clinical uses of IL-27?
- Currently no treatment available
- Currently in pre-clinical stages
What are the functions of IL-27?
- Increased IL-10 production in T cells and increased Treg maturation and effector function
- Increased co-inhibitory receptor expression in CD4 T cells
- Increased Breg maturation and effector function
- increased fibroblast proliferation and collagen synthesis
- Decreased effector CD4 T cells responses especially Th17
- Decreased angiogenesis
- Decreased monocyte recruitment