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.