Abstract
Current developments in molecular biology and genetics have strongly influenced the traditional concept of inflammatory disorders. One example, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been well recognized as a chronic“inflammatory”disorders unknown etiology. However, we have revealed a role one of oncogenic retrovirus HTLV-I tax gene in protooncogene expression in synovial tissue and these events may be associate with synovial hyperplasia RA. One of the pathological features of SCs in active RA is the unusual proliferative of heterogeneous cells termed rheumatoid synoviocytes. Several reports suggest that the nature of rheumatoid synoviocytes is similar to tumor-like expansion. Following the HTLV-Itaxgene association, we first established immortalized synoviocytes clones bearing oncogenic properties from heterogeneous synoviocytes. Clonal and molecular biological analysis clearly suggest that rheumatoid arthritis seems to be one of the characteristics with genetic aberrancy.
These studies suggested that chronic inflammatory disorders should come under new consideration based upon molecular biology or genetics.
