Rheumatoid Arthritis Research Paper

Rheumatoid Arthritis, a disease that currently effects 1.5 million people within the United States, is an autoimmune disorder that causes pain, erythematous, swelling, loss of function, and stiffness within the joint synovium. Although rheumatoid arthritis is commonly characterized by the joint defects in areas like the wrist, hands, knees, feet, and other areas, it is a systemic disease that manifests itself in all areas of the body. The disease can cause psychological symptoms mostly induced by reduced or total loss of functions such as depression and anxiety disorder. In addition to being linked to multiple mental illnesses, it is common for those who suffer from RA to succumb to disorders like Sjogren’s Syndrome, lung scarring, visual …show more content…
The TNF superfamily includes 19 ligands and 29 receptors that play multiple roles that all promote pro-inflammatory reactions in the body (Aggarwal, Bharat, Subash, Ji 651.) Like other cytokines, TNF-α is simply a protein that mediates communication between cells by binding to its respective receptor. Overall, TNF-α has been linked with physiologic proliferation and differentiation of B cells under steady-state conditions. Implications of this particular cytokine has be shown to be a factor in a variety of diseases to include metabolic, cancer, cardiovascular, and autoimmune …show more content…
TNF-α is expressed mostly by cells of the immune system such as monocytes and macrophages. Even though it is mostly expressed by the cells of the myeloid linages, it can be expressed by other cell types like natural killer cells, T-cells, and even cell that do not play a part in the immune system. TNF-α molecules play a role in the pro-inflammatory response by facilitating in cellular death, differentiation, survival, and proliferation. The way TNF-α works in the inflammatory response is by activating specific signaling pathways. Specifically the signaling pathways that TNF-α has been linked to are NF-κβ and JNK that regulates anti-apoptosis and programmed cell death respectively. TNF-α creates cross talk among the two pathways that leads to the inflammatory response. When TNF-α was first discovered to have profound impacts on cellular pathologies in the 1970s the focus was mostly in cancer biology and its functions in relation to tumor suppression and growth. As aforementioned, TNF-α plays a significant role in autoimmune disorders especially in rheumatoid

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