Tahzeeb Fatima

Abstract Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a complex autoimmune disease with fluctuating disease activity and heterogeneous clinical manifestations. While DNA methylation changes have been implicated in SLE pathogenesis, their relationship to disease activity remains unclear. This study aimed to identify epigenetic correlates of disease activity in women with SLE using genome-wide DNA methylation profiling.

INTRODUCTION Treatment failure is common in people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic inflammatory condition mainly affecting the joints.1, 2 Treatment goal in RA is to reach sustained remission or low disease activity in every patient3; however, more than 50% of people with newly diagnosed RA do not respond to first-line treatments at six-month follow-up.4 A current challenge is to identify biomarkers that can predict people at high risk of treatment failure who might require a...

Abstract Background Gout is predicted by a number of comorbidities and lifestyle factors. We aimed to identify discrete phenotype clusters of these factors in a Swedish population-based health survey. In these clusters, we calculated and compared the incidence and relative risk of gout. Methods Cluster analyses were performed to group variables with close proximity and to obtain homogenous clusters of individuals (n = 22,057) in the Malmö Preventive Project (MPP) cohort.