Mario Angeli

Universitätsklinikum Erlangen

Background Chronic inflammatory joint diseases are often difficult to diagnose due to their overlapping clinical presentations and lack of specific diagnostic tests. Distinguishing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from psoriatic arthritis (PsA) or undifferentiated arthritis (UA) is crucial because of their different underlying pathogenic mechanisms and th...

Background Synovial fibroblasts play a crucial role in shaping the joint microenvironment and actively contribute to the initiation and progression of inflammatory arthritis [1]. Notably, distinct subsets of fibroblast activation protein (FAP)-positive synovial fibroblasts have been implicated in inflammation and bone erosion as well as resolution...

Background Enthesitis is a hallmark feature of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) course. So far, most of the data on enthesitis in PsA are based on clinical assessment as well as MRI or ultrasound examinations, due to the challenge in retrieving good quality entheseal tissue for molecular analysis. However, pre-clinical studies as well as surgical invasive...

Background TNFα and IL-23/IL-17 axis plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). Although inhibition of TNFα or IL-17 is a common treatment approach, long-term disease control is still often limited with these drugs. Reactivation of inflammation (clinical relapse) is frequently observed, and so far there is no defin...

Analysis of gene expression at the single-cell level could help predict the effectiveness of therapies in the field of chronic inflammatory diseases such as arthritis. Here, we demonstrate an adopted approach for processing images from the Slide-seq method. Using a puck, which consists of about 50,000 DNA barcode beads, an RNA sequence of a cell is...

Fibroblasts are important regulators of inflammation, but whether fibroblasts change phenotype during resolution of inflammation is not clear. Here we use positron emission tomography to detect fibroblast activation protein (FAP) as a means to visualize fibroblast activation in vivo during inflammation in humans. While tracer accumulation is high i...

Background Despite significant progress in the development of targeted biologic therapies for the treatment of chronic inflammatory joint diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis, more than 40% of patients still record gradual loss of joint function, mostly because of failure to archive complete remission. Herein, persistent joi...

Background Spreading of inflammation from skin to joint is still an unsolved key aspect of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) pathogenesis. Psoriasis (PsO) usually anticipates the joint manifestations, suggesting the existence of a disease mediated skin-joint crosstalk. However, only 30% of the patients with psoriasis develop PsA overtime. [1] To date, it i...

Fibroblasts are key orchestrators of inflammation. Little is known whether these cells change phenotype during resolution of inflammation. We adopted a method to visualise fibroblast activation during inflammation in humans in vivo, which is based on a fibroblast activation protein (FAP) tracer detected by positron emission tomography (PET). While...

Joint fibroblasts play an important role in the transition from joint inflammation to irreversible joint damage. There is no established clinical method to measure fibroblast activation during inflammation and their phenotypic dynamics upon therapy to date. Here we show that upon treatment with IL-17A/TNF-blocking antibodies fibroblasts change thei...

Background Spreading of inflammation from skin to joint is a key question behind the pathogenesis of psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Psoriasis (PsO), being one of the most prevalent skin diseases, usually anticipates joint manifestations, suggesting spreading of skin to joint disease, which happens in about 30% of the patients with psoriasis. ¹ To date,...

Objectives: To establish a minimally invasive biopsy technique for the analysis of entheseal tissue in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Methods: Human cadavers were used for establishing the technique to retrieve tissue from the lateral humeral epicondyle enthesis (cadaveric biopsies). After biopsy, the entire enthesis was surgically res...

Background: In recent clinical trials, use of the MyGlucoHealth blood glucose meter (BGM) and electronic diary was associated with an unusual reporting pattern of glycemic data and hypoglycemic events. Therefore, the performance of representative BGMs used by the patients was investigated to assess repeatability, linearity, and hematocrit interfer...