POS0387 ACPA STATUS CORRELATES WITH DIFFERENTIAL IMMUNE PROFILE OF RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS PATIENTS
Authors: A. Floudas, M. Canavan, T. McGarry, V. Krishna, S. Nagpal, D. Veale, U. Fearon
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2021)

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a progressive erosive autoimmune disease that affects 1% of the world population. Anti-citrullinated protein autoantibodies (ACPA) are routinely used for the diagnosis of RA, however 20-30% of patients are ACPA negative. ACPA status is a delineator of RA disease endotypes with similar clinical manifestation but potentially different pathophysiology. Elucidating the underlying mechanisms of disease pathogenesis could inform a treat to target approach for both ACPA-positive and ACPA-negative RA patients. Objectives: To identify peripheral blood and synovial tissue immune population differences that associate with RA disease endotype. To identify unique RA patient synovial tissue gene signatures and enriched pathways that correlate with ACPA status. Methods: Detailed high dimensionality flow cytometric analysis with supervised and unsupervised algorithm analysis of ACPApos and ACPAneg RA patient peripheral blood and synovial tissue single cell suspensions. Ex vivo peripheral blood and synovial tissue T cell stimulation and cytokine production characterisation. RNAseq analysis with specific pathway enrichment analysis of APCApos and ACPAneg RA patient synovial tissue biopsies. Results: Detailed profiling based on high dimensionality flow cytometric analysis of key peripheral blood and synovial tissue immune populations including B cells, T follicular helper (Tfh) cells, T peripheral helper cells (Tph) and CD4 T cell proinflammatory cytokine responses with supervised and unsupervised algorithm analysis revealed unique RA patient peripheral blood B cell and Tfh cell profiles. ACPApos RA patients were characterised by significantly (*P=0.03) increased frequency of Tfh (CXCR5 + CD4 + ) cells and distinct clustering influenced by increased switched (IgD - CD27 + ) and DN (IgD - CD27 - ) memory B cells compared to APCAneg RA patients. Surprisingly synovial tissue B cell subpopulation distribution was similar between ACPAneg and ACPApos RA patients, with significant accumulation of switched and double negative memory B cells, highlighting a key role for specific B cell subsets in both disease endotypes. Interestingly, synovial tissue CD4 T cell proinflammatory cytokine (TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-2, GM-CSF, IL-17A, IL-22, IL-4) production was markedly different between ACPAneg and APCApos RA patients with hierarchical clustering and PCA analysis revealing endotype specific cytokine profiles with ACPAneg RA patient synovial T cells showing increased TNF-α (P=0.01) expression. RNAseq analysis of RA patient synovial tissue revealed significant disease endotype specific gene signatures with specific enrichment for B cell receptor signalling and T cell specific pathways in ACPApos compared to ACPAneg RA patients. Additionally, significantly different chemokine receptor expression based on RA patient ACPA status was observed with increased CXCR3 (P&lt;0.001), CCR7 (P=0.002), and CCR2 (P=0.004) but decreased CXCR7 (P=0.007) expression in APCApos compared to ACPAneg RA patient synovial biopsies. Conclusion: ACPA status associates with unique synovial tissue immune cell and gene profile signatures highlighting differences in the underlying immunological mechanisms involved, therefore reinforcing the need for a treat to target approach for both endotypes of RA. Figure 1. RNAseq analysis of synovial tissue biopsies revealed specific T cell related pathway enrichment in ACPA positive compared to ACPA negative RA patients (n=50, analysis performed with the DESq2 and pathfindeR pipelines in R ). Disclosure of Interests: Achilleas Floudas: None declared, Mary Canavan: None declared, Trudy McGarry Employee of: Novartis, Vinod Krishna Employee of: Janssen, Sunil Nagpal Employee of: Janssen, GSK, Douglas Veale Speakers bureau: Abbvie, Janssen, Novartis, MSD, Pfizer, UCB, Consultant of: Abbvie, Janssen, Novartis, MSD, Pfizer, UCB, Grant/research support from: Janssen, Abbvie, Pfizer, UCB, Ursula Fearon Speakers bureau: Abbvie, Grant/research support from: Janssen, Abbvie, Pfizer, UCB