Biomarkers that are indicative of efficacy of a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis or for the responsiveness to a treatment regimen in a subject being treated for rheumatoid arthritis are described. Also described are probes capable of detecting the biomarkers and related methods and kits for assessing, monitoring, and selecting treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.

A method of electronically diagnosing a cause of an inflamed and/or painful joint of a patient using a joint specific biological material, the method including: receiving, data regarding tests performed on the joint specific biological material; determining if osteoarthritis (OA) is the cause of the inflamed and/or painful joint based upon one or more of the tests, wherein the diagnosing is based upon a level of cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) and a ratio of COMP to interleukin-8 (IL-8) in the joint specific biological material; if the one or more of the tests indicate OA is not the cause of the inflamed joint, determining if inflammatory arthritis, crystalline arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, possible septic arthritis or septic arthritis is the cause of the inflamed joint based upon a further plurality of the tests; and generating a sample results report with result data including diagnosis for use by a clinician.

The present disclosure relates to the use of anti-PAD4 autoantibodies as a clinical biomarker for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment. The disclosure further provides an assay to detect anti-PAD4 autoantibodies, assay kits for the detection of anti-PAD4 autoantibodies, as well as computer implemented diagnostic methods.

The present invention relates in part to compositions for targeted delivery of an agent and agent delivery systems comprising a novel tissue-targeting peptide ligand (CKPFDRALC) (SEQ ID NO: 1) named ART-2. In certain aspects, the ART-2-coated liposomes encapsulating an agent, such as a therapeutic agent, diagnostic agent, imaging agent, or any combination thereof, were more effective in inhibiting, diagnosing, or imaging a disease or disorder, such as an arthritis progression, than control, despite a comparable safety profile.

The present disclosure relates to antibodies, for example monoclonal antibodies, and their use in clinical patient evaluation and therapy. The present disclosure further relates to a method for modulating the activity of human CXCL-1 protein (hereinafter, referred to as CXCL1). In an aspect, antibodies described herein are capable of being used as a medicament for the prevention and/or treatment of diseases involving CXCL1 function, for example, pathological angiogenesis and inflammatory diseases.

The present invention relates to methods of diagnosing or prognosing arthritis, specifically methods of diagnosing or prognosing psoriatic arthritis. Also disclosed are methods of diagnosing or prognosing rheumatoid arthritis, and methods of differentiating psoriatic arthritis from rheumatoid arthritis. Specifically, the methods involve determining the quantitative or qualitative level of one or more biomarkers in a biological sample from a subject.

The present invention relates to a peptide capable of binding to rheumatoid arthritis autoantibodies, which is a consecutive 10-25 amino acid sequence of any one fragment of the group consisting of SEQ ID NO: 3-4, 7-13 or 16-19, wherein the peptide fragment has an epitope that binds to the rheumatoid arthritis autoantibodies. Furthermore, the peptide fragment bound to the rheumatoid arthritis autoantibodies is used for testing rheumatoid arthritis, and according to this use, the present invention provides a method for testing rheumatoid arthritis disease and a test reagent kit used for determining whether a subject to be tested suffers from rheumatoid arthritis disease.

Provided are: a maturation suppressor for dendritic cells, said maturation suppressor inhibiting the binding of TARM1 protein to collagen protein to thereby suppress the maturation of dendritic cells; a maturation suppression method for dendritic cells, said method comprising using the maturation suppressor; a pharmaceutical composition containing the maturation suppressor as an active ingredient; a method for screening a maturation suppressor for dendritic cells; and a method for screening a therapeutic component for a disease mediated by dendritic cells.

Biomarkers are used in compositions, combinations, systems, and methods for diagnosing, staging, and monitoring and/or treatment of osteoarthritis. The biomarkers discriminate osteoarthritis from rheumatoid arthritis, crystalline arthritis, septic arthritis, and/or traumatic injury, and can be used in a differential diagnosis of joint pain and/or joint inflammation.

The present invention provides a method for determining whether a Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patient is susceptible to treatment with a B cell targeted therapy, which method comprises the step of analysing B cells and/or germinal centre-like structures (GC-LS) in a synovial tissue sample from the patient; wherein a patient whose synovial tissue sample is B cell rich and/or GC-LS negative is determined to be susceptible to treatment with the B cell targeted therapy, whereas a patient whose synovial tissue sample is B-cell poor and/or GC-LS positive is determined to be resistant to treatment with the B cell targeted therapy.