Materials and methods
RA
patients and control subjects
Sera
and clinical details from 33 patients with RA who fulfilled the 1987
American College of Rheumatology (ACR)/2010 European League Against
Rheumatism (EULAR) classification criteria for RA were obtained without
any treatment. All patients had active disease with Disease Activity
Score at 28 joints (DAS28) > 3.2. They were recruited from
the Department of Rheumatology, Jiangsu Province Hospital of Chinese
Medicine. The study protocol was approved by the institutional review
board (IRB) of the Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of
Traditional Chinese Medicine (process number: 2016NL-KS14) and the study
complied the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. All participants
read the study information sheet and signed the partake consent.
Clinical data about the disease, physician, and patient global
assessment and DAS28 score were assessed. Clinical characteristics of
the patients and the 24 healthy controls (HCs) were shown inTable 1 . Blood was collected for ELISA and miRNA analysis.