Abstract
In rheumatoid arthritis (RA) cell proliferation and altered metalloproteinase expression of synovial lining cells are associated with increased levels of TNF-alpha in the rheumatoid joint. We previously showed that synoviocytes of RA patients express high levels of the transcription factor Egr-1. Here we report that TNF-alpha is capable of inducing high Egr-1 mRNA levels in human skin fibroblasts and in synoviocytes from both, RA and reactive arthritis patients. Moreover, we observed in vitro a marked increase in fibroblast proliferation, a loss of growth inhibition by cell-to-cell contact with pannus-like cell growth and an altered cytokine expression pattern when synoviocytes were cultured in presence of TNF-alpha.
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