IL-33 at the EULAR 2013

IL-33 is an interesting cytokine. XU W.D. and colleagues published a paper recently, which looked at the potential role of IL-33, a member of the IL-1 family, in rheumatoid arthritis and experimental inflammatory arthritis. The authors think that inhibition of IL-33 could be a potential therapeutic approach. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23800433

There were several papers at the EULAR 2013 Meeting in Madrid, I’ll only refer to the study concerning rheumatoid arthritis. The other studies are on tendinopathy, systemic sclerosis, and lupus. Conclusions: “Serum IL33 level is increased in RA pts with anti-CCP and/or RF. Moreover, we confirm our transcriptomic analysis and demonstrate for the first time that serum IL-33 level represents a novel simple useful biomarker predicting clinical response to RTX, independently of auto-antibodies status, which usually displays a strong impact on rituximab response. The role of the IL-33/ST2 axis in B-cell immunopathology in RA needs to be further addressed.” Roche already tried to establish the rheumatoid factor as a marker for response to rituximab. IL-33 seems to be a better candidate.

I’ll look for more studies in the future, as IL-33 might get more attention both for diagnostic/prognostic and therapeutic reasons.