Figure 1

RA patients, irrespective of disease duration show marked shifts in the frequency of the peripheral blood B cell subsets. (a) Dot-plots of IgD versus CD27 of peripheral blood CD19⁺ B cells from representative healthy control and a long-standing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients illustrating the differences in the frequency of each B cell subset. (b) Box-plots representing the 10th, 25th, 50th (median), 75th and 90th percentiles of the frequencies of the total B cells (as a percentage of lymphocytes), total CD27⁺ memory B cells, naïve IgD⁺ CD27^- B cells, pre-switch IgD⁺ CD27⁺ memory B cells and post-switch IgD-CD27+ memory B cells (each as a percentage of B cells) in the peripheral blood of healthy donors (n = 40, white bars) and long-standing RA patients (n = 33, grey bars). *Significant (P < 0.01) difference from control donors.