摘要：

Abstract Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by perpetuated inflammation in multiple joints. To date, there is no cure for RA, and the causal factor for non-resolving inflammation in \{RA\} remains unclear. In this study, we initially observed expression of Epstein–Barr virus-encoded small \{RNA1\} (EBER1) in the synovial tissue of all five patients who showed nonresolving \{RA\} inflammation. By contrast, \{EBER1\} was detected in the synovial tissue of only one out of seven patients with advanced osteoarthritis (OA; p < 0.01, Fisher’s exact test). To confirm this finding, we conducted a second study on synovial tissue samples taken from 23 patients with nonresolving \{RA\} inflammation and 13 patients with OA. All synovial samples from patients with nonresolving inflammation of \{RA\} showed positive expression of \{EBER1\} (23/23, 100%), whereas none of the synovial samples from patients with \{OA\} showed expression of \{EBER1\} (0/13, 0%; p < 0.001, by Fisher’s exact test). In vitro, transfection of \{RA\} synovial fibroblasts with \{EBER1\} induced the production of interleukin-6. Taken together, these data strongly suggest that nonresolving \{RA\} inflammation is strongly related to the presence of EBER1, which might be, at least partially, responsible for synovial fibroblast interleukin-6 production.

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