Production of cytokines and metalloproteinases in rheumatoid synovitis is T cell dependent

PA Klimiuk, H Yang, JJ Goronzy, CM Weyand - Clinical immunology, 1999 - Elsevier
In rheumatoid arthritis, T lymphocytes have been proposed to play a pivotal role in the
disease process, but they have also been considered to simply represent an
epiphenomenon in a primarily synoviocyte/macrophage-driven disease. To directly examine
the contribution of CD4 T cells in synovitis, T cells were either depleted from or adoptively
transferred into NOD-SCID mice engrafted with rheumatoid synovial tissue. Injection of anti-
CD2 antibody resulted in the elimination of 80–90% of tissue-infiltrating T cells in the …