preview

A Brief Note On Rheumatoid Arthritis And Cxcl 10 / Il 10 Gene Therapy1 Essay

Decent Essays
Treating Rheumatoid Arthritis with CXCL-10/IL-10 Gene Therapy1

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a common autoimmune disease. The chronic inflammation they induced lead to severe joint swelling and damage2. It is more likely to strike on aged people and females3. In Australia, 400,000 people are suffering from it with different extent3-4. The mechanisms of the disease are well-studied. The synovium is the primary target of the immune system for RA patients. With white blood cells migrated in, the synovium membrane becomes thick and inflamed, which leads to undesired tissue growth3. Various chemical substances are released from the inflamed site and starts affecting surrounding tissues, such as cartilages and ligaments. In severe cases, they might even result in whole-body disorder2-4.

The RA disease development is linked with many pro-inflammatory factors 1-2. Cytokines such as IL-1, IL-6 and TNF-α played important roles in inflammatory development on diseases site2, therefore, clinically, suppressing the activity of these factors on synovial cells is the main strategy for most RA treatment methods. The suppression can be achieved externally by drug management. The recent development of gene therapy studies on RA, in addition, has opened up a new therapeutic approach via genetic modification. The principle of RA gene therapy is to use a vector to insert a receptor antagonise gene or an antisense gene of pro-inflammatory factors in synovial fibroblast cells, which is then
Get Access