Rheumatoid arthritis is inherited in a complex manner. So far several single susceptibility genes, such as PTPN22, STAT4, and TRAF1-C5, have been identified. However, it is presumed that some genes may interact to have a significant effect on the disease, while each of them only plays a modest role. We propose a new combinatorial association test to detect the gene-gene interaction in the rheum...

Abnormal nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) signaling has been attributed to the initiation and progression of cancer. Posttranslational modification of p65 facilitates optimal NF-kappaB signaling after activation. Here, we show that the phosphorylation of serine 536 was required for p65-mediated transcription and I kappa B alpha expression in fibroblasts. Furthermore, tumor necrosis factor (TNF...

The release of endogenous molecules from the skin after injury has been proposed to influence inflammation. Recent studies have found that pro-inflammatory signals can be generated by damaged endogenous self-RNA, and this event is detected by TLR3. Conversely, release of endogenous fragments of hyaluronic acid (HA) after injury has been proposed to inhibit LPS induced inflammation driven by TLR...

BACKGROUND IgA nephropathy (IgAN) and nephritis in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) are two common forms of glomerulonephritis in which genetic findings are of importance for disease development. We have recently reported an association of IgAN with variants of TGFB1. In several autoimmune diseases, particularly in SLE, IRF5, STAT4 genes and TRAF1-C5 locus have been shown to be important cand...

The importance of considering confounding due to population stratification in genome-wide association analysis using case-control designs has been a source of debate. Armitage's trend test, together with some other methods developed from it, can correct for population stratification to some extent. However, there is a question whether the one-sided or the two-sided alternative hypothesis is app...

The biochemical pathways involved in CD40 signaling have been extensively studied in B cells and B cell lines, and appear to be primarily initiated by recruitment of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor-associated factor (TRAF) signaling proteins to the CD40 cytoplasmic domain. Signaling pathways activated through CD40 in monocytes/macrophages have not been characterized as well as in B cel...