Figure 3.

Poor response to tumor necrosis factor blockade is accompanied by upregulation of interferon (IFN) response genes. For five European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) (0) poor responder (red) and five EULAR (2) good responder (green) patients, the expression levels of 15 IFN response genes were measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (BioMark™) at baseline and 1, 2, 3, and 4 months after treatment. From two poor and one good responder patients, the 3-month time points are missing. The IFN response gene expression levels during treatment were compared between the two clinical response groups by means of two-way analysis of variance test. Treatment-induced changes in the expression levels of two genes, LGALS3BP (a) and OAS1 (b), were significantly different between the two response groups. (c) The mean expression level of five IFN response genes (LGALS3BP, OAS1, Mx2, SERPING1, and OAS2) showed the best significant difference between the two clinical response groups. Graphs show the mean and standard error of the mean expression levels for each clinical response group. RQ, relative quantity.