ArticleAnnals of the rheumatic diseases2019
Non-response to rituximab therapy in rheumatoid arthritis is associated with incomplete disruption of the B cell receptor repertoire.
Article in Annals of the rheumatic diseases, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 58 citations in OpenAlex.
- B-cell centrality dictates therapeutic efficacy across autoimmune diseases: a systematic review.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Pooled it
- Case study of CD19 CAR T therapy in a subject with immune-mediate necrotizing myopathy treated in the RESET-Myositis phase I/II trial.Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy · 2024Trial
- CD19 CAR T cell therapy for treatment-refractory seropositive rheumatoid arthritis: a phase 1 trial.Nature medicine · 2026Article
- Case study of resecabtagene autoleucel in a subject with diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis treated in the RESET-SSc trial.Molecular therapy. Advances · 2026Article
- Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Comprehensive Review of Etiology, Pathophysiology, and Innovative Therapeutic Advancements.Current pharmaceutical design · 2026Review
- Revisiting B-cell targeted therapies in rheumatoid arthritis: from paradoxical biology to deep immune reset.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Biomarkers of treatment response in rheumatoid arthritis: from conventional markers to tissue immunophenotype.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Evaluating the Therapeutic Efficacy of an Anti-BAFF Receptor Antibody Using a Rheumatoid Arthritis Mouse Model.Antibodies (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The N-of-1 Trials and where to use them in Rheumatology.Mediterranean journal of rheumatology · 2025Review
- Deciphering Autoimmune Diseases: Unveiling the Diagnostic, Therapeutic, and Prognostic Potential of Immune Repertoire Sequencing.Inflammation · 2025Review
- Sensitive B-cell receptor repertoire analysis shows repopulation correlates with clinical response to rituximab in rheumatoid arthritis.Arthritis research & therapy · 2024Article
- Seven-chain adaptive immune receptor repertoire analysis in rheumatoid arthritis reveals novel features associated with disease and clinically relevant phenotypes.Genome biology · 2024Article
- Systematic evaluation of B-cell clonal family inference approaches.BMC immunology · 2024Article
- B-Cell Receptor Repertoire: Recent Advances in Autoimmune Diseases.Clinical reviews in allergy & immunology · 2024Review
- Distinct fibroblast functions associated with fibrotic and immune-mediated inflammatory diseases and their implications for therapeutic development.F1000Research · 2024Review
- B cell receptor repertoire abnormalities in autoimmune disease.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Review
- B-cell receptor profiling before and after IVIG monotherapy in newly diagnosed idiopathic inflammatory myopathies.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2023Article
- Obinutuzumab Effectively Depletes Key B-cell Subsets in Blood and Tissue in End-stage Renal Disease Patients.Transplantation direct · 2023Article
- Epigenetic regulation of B cells and its role in autoimmune pathogenesis.Cellular & molecular immunology · 2022Review
- Proteogenomic analysis of the autoreactive B cell repertoire in blood and tissues of patients with Sjögren's syndrome.Annals of the rheumatic diseases · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo gain more insight into the dynamics of lymphocyte depletion and develop new predictors of clinical response to rituximab in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
methodsRNA-based next-generation sequencing was used to analyse the B cell receptor (BCR) repertoire in peripheral blood and synovial tissue samples collected from 24 seropositive patients with RA treated with rituximab. Clonal expansion, mutation load and clonal overlap were assessed in samples collected before, at week 4 and at week 16 or 24 after treatment and correlated to the patients' clinical response.
resultsAfter 4 weeks of rituximab-induced B cell depletion, the peripheral blood BCR repertoire of treated patients consisted of fewer, more dominant and more mutated BCR clones. No significant changes in the synovial tissue BCR repertoire were detected until week 16 post-treatment, when a reduced clonal overlap with baseline and an increased mutation load were observed. In patients who were non-responders at month 3 (n=5) using the European League Against Rheumatism response criteria, peripheral blood samples taken at week 4 after rituximab treatment showed more dominant clones compared with moderate responders (n=9) (median (IQR): 36 (27-52) vs 18 (16-26); p<0.01) and more clonal overlap with the baseline (median (IQR): 5% (2%-20%) vs 0% (0%-0%); p≤0.01).
conclusionSignificant changes in BCR clonality are observed in peripheral blood of patients 4 weeks after rituximab treatment, while changes in synovial tissue were observed at later time points. Incomplete depletion of the dominant baseline peripheral blood BCR repertoire in the first month of treatment might predict clinical non-response at 3 months.
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