AUTHOR=Simone Davide , Stingo Alessia , Ciccia Francesco TITLE=Genetic and Environmental Determinants of T Helper 17 Pathogenicity in Spondyloarthropathies JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics VOLUME=12 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2021.703242 DOI=10.3389/fgene.2021.703242 ISSN=1664-8021 ABSTRACT=
In Spondyloarthropathies (SpA), a common group of immune-mediated diseases characterised by excessive inflammation of musculo-skeletal structures and extra-articular organs, T helper 17 (Th17) cells are widely considered the main drivers of the disease. Th17 are able to modulate their genes according to the immune environment: upon differentiation, they can adopt either housekeeping, anti-bacterial gene modules or inflammatory, pathogenic functions, and only the latter would mediate immune diseases, such as SpA. Experimental work aimed at characterising Th17 heterogeneity is largely performed on murine cells, for which the