Telomeres and T-cell Receptor Excision Circles (TRECs) From Peripheral Blood in Normal Subjects Over Time

It is difficult to establish early on the prognosis of patients with recent-onset polyarthritis. We want to know if we can use the length of telomeres in peripheral blood cells at baseline as a novel prognostic marker.

In order to be able to interpret our observations in arthritis patients over time, we need to compare these results with those observed in normal human controls adjusted for gender and for age groups.

These patients are first screened for the presence of acute or chronic severe diseases (cancer, cardiovascular, articular, et...). They then have genomic DNA extracted from peripheral blood at Baseline and at 3 months interval for a year than annually for a total duration of 5 years. A complete blood count is collected at each blood draw. At each blood draw, the appearance of acute or chronic diseases is noted.

Inclusion criteria

Healthy-for-age subjects, as defined by Absence of acute infectious, traumatic or immunologic disease; Absence of severe chronic diseases Age and sex concordant with the stratification of patients from a longitudinal cohort of early inflammatory arthritis (EUPA)

Exclusion criteria

History of cancer (except a single episode of non-melanocytic skin cancer) Severe cardiovascular disease (i.e. difficult to control or requiring multiple drugs) Chronic infection Inflammatory arthritis Severe high blood pressure or diabetes (i.e. difficult to control or requiring multiple drugs) Any severe disease affecting function or difficult to control or requiring multiple drugs