Abstract
Transcriptomic technologies are constantly changing and improving, resulting in an ever increasing understanding of gene expression in health and disease. These technologies have been used to investigate the pathological changes occurring in the joints of rheumatoid arthritis patients, leading to discoveries of disease mechanisms, and novel potential therapeutic targets. Microarrays were initially used on both whole tissue and cell subsets to investigate research questions, with bulk RNA sequencing allowing for further elaboration of these findings. A key example is the classification of pathotypes in rheumatoid arthritis using RNA sequencing that had previously been discovered using microarray and histology. Single-cell sequencing has now delivered a step change in understanding of the diversity and function of subpopulations of cells, in particular synovial fibroblasts. Future technologies, such as high resolution spatial transcriptomics, will enable step changes integrating single cell transcriptomic and geographic data to provide an integrated understanding of synovial pathology.
Highlights
Research into transcriptomic changes in the diseased synovium in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has significantly enhanced our understanding of disease pathogenesis
This heterogeneity led to synovial fibroblasts being termed fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS) historically, recently developed transcriptomic technologies, single-cell sequencing, have allowed for the recognition of subpopulations of fibroblasts
Whilst this work serves a purpose with regards to biomarker screening and understanding links between synovial and systemic inflammation, it is difficult to determine which specific cells are responsible for the changes in gene expression
Summary
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Rheumatology, a section of the journal
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