Patients
RA synovial tissue was obtained from RA patients (n=12, five males, seven females, aged 30-70 years old, mean age 50 years) during synovectomy or joint replacement surgery at the Shandong Provincial Hospital (Jinan, China). All patients met the diagnostic criteria for RA as revised by the American college of rheumatology in 1987. The majority of patients were treated with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), including methotrexate, and none were on biologics. Demographic data are provided in Online Supplementary Table 1. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Shandong Medicinal Biotechonogy Center (SMBC17LL007) and was conducted according to the recommendations of the Declaration of Helsinki. All patients provided informed consent for participation in the study.