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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Oct 30.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Rheumatol. 2017 Mar 31;13(5):291–301. doi: 10.1038/nrrheum.2017.49

Figure 2. Emerging hallmarks of T cells in rheumatoid arthritis.

Figure 2

Core hallmarks of T cells in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are their ability to massively proliferate and to differentiate into proinflammatory effector cells. Several changes in the basic biologic pathways listed here distinguish T cells in healthy individuals from those in patients with RA and enable such T cells to deviate from their protective role to an autoinflammatory one. The molecular defects underlying pathogenic T-cell behaviour are currently being discovered; among them is the reprogramming of cellular metabolism, which fuels the functional capabilities of arthritogenic T cells.