Fig. 1

Autophagy levels in PBMCs from RA responders and non-responders to anti-TNF drugs. a Western blot analysis of LC3-II in PBMCs isolated from patients with RA before (t0) and after 4 months of treatment with anti-TNF drugs (t4). Samples from two responding and two non-responding patients as representative of the total number of 25 analyzed are shown. Densitometry analysis of LC3-II levels relative to β-actin is also displayed. ****P < 0.0001. b Correlation between autophagy and clinical parameters in PBMCs isolated from patients with RA at baseline and after therapy with anti-TNF drugs. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient and linear regression are displayed. DAS 28, Disease Activity Score 28; CDAI, clinical disease activity index. c, d Autophagy and apoptosis levels in CD4+ T lymphocytes from responders and non-responders. Western blot analyses of LC3-II (c) and of cleaved PARP (d) in CD4+ T lymphocytes from patients with RA. Densitometry analyses are also shown. *P < 0.05. e, f Autophagy levels in CD8 + T and B lymphocytes from responding and non-responding patients before and after treatment with anti-TNF drugs. Western blot analysis of autophagy marker LC3-II in cell lysates obtained from CD8+ (e) and CD19+ (f) lymphocytes purified by cell sorting. Blots shown are representative of independent experiments performed in T and B cells from eight patients with RA before and after treatment with anti-TNF drugs. Densitometry analysis of LC3-II amount relative to β-actin is also shown