Aberrant splicing of the hRasGRP4 transcript and decreased levels of this signaling protein in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells in a subset of patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Table 1 Statistical analysis of hRasGRP4 isoforms in healthy subjects and patients with RA and autoimmune controls

	normal	variant (%)	OR	95% CI	P-value
Any variant
Healthy subjects	62	18 (22.5)
RA patients (total)	47	74 (67.3)	5.42	2.86 to 10.3	0.00000016
RA patients (untreated)	9	16 (64.0)	6.12	2.32 to 16.2	0.00029
Autoimmune controls	69	31 (31.0)	1.55	0.79 to 3.04	0.27
	non-variant 6	variant 6	OR	95% C.I.	P- value
Variant 6
Healthy subjects	79	1 (1.3)
RA patients	95	20 (18.0)	16.6	2.18 to 126	0.00035
Autoimmune controls	92	8 (8.0)	6.87	0.84 to 56.1	0.038

CI, confidential interval and P-values were calculated by Chi-square test to evaluate the incidence of alternative splicing with healthy subjects and patients groups. The frequency of variant 6 in each group was evaluated by Fisher's exact probability test. The percentage (%) of sequenced clones that contained an aberrant hRasGRP4 transcript is also indicated. OR, odds ratio; RA, rheumatoid arthritis

ISSN: 1478-6362