title: Measles contributes to rheumatoid arthritis: evidence from pathway and network analyses of genome-wide association studies.
abstract: Growing evidence from epidemiological studies indicates the association between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and measles. However, the exact mechanism for this association is still unclear now. We consider that the strong association between both diseases may be caused by shared genetic pathways. We performed a pathway analysis of large-scale RA genome-wide association studies (GWAS) dataset with 5,539 cases and 20,169 controls of European descent. Meanwhile, we evaluated our findings using previously identified RA loci, protein-protein interaction network and previous results from pathway analysis of RA and other autoimmune diseases GWAS. We confirmed four pathways including Cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, Jak-STAT signaling, T cell receptor signaling and Cell adhesion molecules. Meanwhile, we highlighted for the first time the involvement of Measles and Intestinal immune network for IgA production pathways in RA. Our results may explain the strong association between RA and measles, which may be caused by the shared genetic pathway. We believe that our results will be helpful for future genetic studies in RA pathogenesis and may significantly assist in the development of therapeutic strategies.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neurology, Guangdong Medical College, Zhanjiang, China ; Genome Analysis Laboratory, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Guiyou
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Yongshuai
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Xiaoguang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ruijie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Guoda
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Rennan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Liangcai
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Mingzhi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.forename: Yingbo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Miao
authors.forename: Zugen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Keshen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000150:complications* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D006801:Humans; D008457:Measles / Q000150:complications* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D060066:Protein Interaction Maps; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015398:Signal Transduction