Arun Kumar Tripathy

Institute of Mathematics of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Institute of Mathematics of the Czech Academy of Sciences

With the growing popularity of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among individuals with chronic pain and muscular problems, a number of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) show their interest in CAM interventions for disease improvement. Various reports published on CAM are based on an animal model of RA; however, there is often a lack of high-quality clinical investigations for explaining the success stories of CAM therapies in patients with RA. CAMs having the potential to be used for therapy in patients with RA have been identified, however lack of awareness and skepticism of their efficacy has made the patients reluctant to choose these drug-less therapies. In this review, we have summarized the existing evidence which suggests promising efficacy of different alternative therapies in managing RA and providing both physical and mental well-being to RA patients.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disorder of unknown etiology with aberrant immunological responses leading to inflammation, swelling and pain of the joints. CD8⁺ T cells have been known to be one of the major immune modulators in the progression of RA and the presence of toll-like receptors (TLRs) on these cells further accentuate their role in RA. Herein, we report an increased expression of TLR7 in the endosomes of CD8⁺ T cells of RA patients correlating with disease severity. The stimulation of TLR7 with Imiquimod (IMQ) in these CD8⁺ T cells drives the signalling cascade via NFkB and pERK activation and hence an increase in the mRNA transcripts of signature cytokines and cytolytic enzymes. However, a parallel synthesis of Tristetraprolin (TTP), an mRNA destabilizing protein prevents the translation of the mRNA transcripts, leading to a rapid degeneration of the target mRNA. We thus report that a direct TLR7 ligation by its agonist increases cytokine transcript signature but not an equivalent protein surge.

This work is concerned about the necessary and sufficient conditions for oscillation of solutions of 2-dimensional nonlinear neutral delay difference systems of the form: Δ [ x ( n ) + p ( n ) x ( n − m ) y ( n ) + p ( n ) y ( n − m ) ] = [ a ( n ) b ( n ) c ( n ) d ( n ) ] [ f ( x ( n − α ) ) g ( y ( n − β ) ) ] , \Delta \left[ {\matrix{ {x\left( n \right) + p\left( n \right)x\left( {n - m} \right)} \hfill \cr {y\left( n \right) + p\left( n \right)y\left( {n - m} \right)} \hfill \cr } } \right] = \left[ {\matrix{ {a\left( n \right)} \hfill & {b\left( n \right)} \hfill \cr {c\left( n \right)} \hfill & {d\left( n \right)} \hfill \cr } } \right]\,\,\left[ {\matrix{ {f\left( {x\left( {n - \alpha } \right)} \right)} \hfill \cr {g\left( {y\left( {n - \beta } \right)} \right)} \hfill \cr } } \right], where m > 0, α ≥ 0, β ≥ 0 are integers, a(n), b(n), c(n), d(n), p(n) are real sequences and f, g ∈ 𝒞(ℝ, ℝ).