TY - JOUR T1 - Beyond autoantibodies: Biological roles of human autoreactive B cells in rheumatoid arthritis revealed by whole transcriptome profiling JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/144121 SP - 144121 AU - Ankit Mahendra AU - Xingyu Yang AU - Shaza Abnouf AU - Daechan Park AU - Sanam Soomro AU - Jay RT Adolacion AU - Jason Roszik AU - Cristian Coarfa AU - Gabrielle Romain AU - Keith Wanzeck AU - S. Louis Bridges, Jr. AU - Amita Aggarwal AU - Peng Qiu AU - Sandeep Krishna Agarwal AU - Chandra Mohan AU - Navin Varadarajan Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/01/144121.abstract N2 - Although the contribution of B-cell derived autoreactive antibodies to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been studied extensively, the autoantibody-independent roles of B cells in the progression of the disease is not well-defined. Here we present the first comprehensive transcriptome profile of human autoreactive B cells in an autoimmune disease by performing RNA-sequencing of citrulline-specific B cells from RA patients. In order to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of the profile of these citrulline-specific (RA-CCPPOS) B cells, we performed comparative analyses to both citrulline-negative (RA-CCPNEG) B cells from the same donors, and identified 431 differentially expressed genes (DEGs); and hemagglutinin-specific (HA) B cells from healthy individuals and identified 1658 DEGs. Three-way comparisons of these B cell populations demonstrated that RA-CCPPOS B cells, in comparison to the RA-CCPNEG B cells, demonstrate a potential role in protein citrullination and inflammation; RA-CCPPOS B cells in comparison to HA-specific B cells demonstrate RA-specific signatures like the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, costimulatory molecules and B-cell activation cascades; and all B cells from RA patients demonstrated a significant impact of the multitude of TNF signaling pathways. Furthermore, transcription factor profiling suggested that cyclic AMP (cAMP) related pathways and downstream signaling molecules are selectively enriched in RA-CCPPOS cells in comparison to the other two B cell subsets. We advanced the understanding of the citrulline reactive B cells in RA pathophysiology by documenting and validating two novel observations in independent cohorts of patients: (1) the expression of IL15Rα is restricted to citrulline-specific cells within RA patients and the concentration of soluble IL15Rα is elevated in the sera of RA patients, (2) B cells from RA patients are capable of producing epidermal growth factor ligand, amphiregulin (AREG) which in turn has a direct impact on the mechanistic effectors of RA, osteoclasts and fibroblastlike synoviocytes (FLS). Overall, our comprehensive dataset identifies several existing FDA-approved drugs that can potentially be repurposed for RA and can serve as a foundation for studying the multi-faceted roles of B cells in other autoimmune diseases. ER -