July 17, 2018
Keio University School of Medicine
Professor Tsutomu Takeuchi and Senior Lecturer Katsuya Suzuki of the Department of Internal Medicine (Rheumatology), and Professor Akihiko Yoshimura of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, both at the Keio University School of Medicine, in a joint research project with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, have elucidated the molecular characteristics of the remission state in patients with rheumatoid arthritis through multi-omics analysis.
While drug therapy has made it possible to achieve a state of remission (clinical remission), where there is almost no joint pain or swelling, it was not known to what extent the molecular state within the body approaches that of healthy individuals. Therefore, the researchers defined remission based on data on the expression levels of various molecules (hereinafter referred to as "molecular remission"). By observing the molecular state within patients' bodies over time, they found that drug therapy can induce molecular remission. Furthermore, they discovered that the degree of molecular remission is strongly associated with long-term indicators of inflammation and physical disability in rheumatoid arthritis, revealing its importance for sustained remission.
On the other hand, some molecular characteristics remained different from those of healthy individuals even after drug therapy, and these were found to be features of rheumatoid arthritis patients that are not associated with currently used indicators of inflammation or physical disability. Moreover, an analysis using public data on molecular information from patients revealed commonalities with the characteristics of patients with inflammatory bowel disease and obesity, suggesting potential applications for elucidating the pathophysiology of these diseases and for drug discovery.
This long-standing study, conducted as an industry-academia collaboration, has achieved groundbreaking results by integrating high-quality clinical information with the latest multi-omics and bioinformatics technologies, presenting molecular remission as a new therapeutic goal. This is expected to be a valuable step toward realizing precision medicine for rheumatoid arthritis and developing new drugs.
The results of this research were published in the online edition of the international scientific journal "Nature Communications" on July 16, 2018 (UK time).
Please see below for the full press release.