Identification of Potential Plasma microRNA Stratification Biomarkers for Response to Allogeneic Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Rheumatoid Arthritis.

The ability to identify and stratify patients that will respond to specific therapies has been transformational in a number of disease areas, particularly oncology. It is anticipated that this will also be the case for cell-based therapies, particularly in complex and heterogeneous diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Recently, clinical results with expanded allogenic adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (eASCs) have indicated clinical efficacy in highly refractory RA patients.

Differential utilization of CD134 as a functional receptor by diverse strains of feline immunodeficiency virus.

The feline homologue of CD134 (fCD134) is the primary binding receptor for feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), targeting the virus preferentially to activated CD4+ helper T cells. However, with disease progression, the cell tropism of FIV broadens such that B cells and monocytes/macrophages become significant reservoirs of proviral DNA, suggesting that receptor utilization may alter with disease progression. We examined the receptor utilization of diverse strains of FIV and found that all strains tested utilized CD134 as the primary receptor.