• Annalisa Ravani, Fabrizio Vincenzi, Alessandra Bortoluzzi, Melissa Padovan, Silvia Pasquini, Stefania Gessi, Stefania Merighi, Pier Andrea Borea, Marcello Govoni, and Katia Varani.
• Department of Medical Sciences, Pharmacology Unit, University of Ferrara, 44121 Ferrara, Italy. rvnnls@unife.it.
• Int J Mol Sci. 2017 Mar 24; 18 (4).

AbstractRheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) are chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases that affect joints, causing debilitating pain and disability. Adenosine receptors (ARs) play a key role in the mechanism of inflammation, and the activation of A2A and A₃AR subtypes is often associated with a reduction of the inflammatory status. The aim of this study was to investigate the involvement of ARs in patients suffering from early-RA (ERA), RA, AS and PsA. Messenger RNA (mRNA) analysis and saturation binding experiments indicated an upregulation of A2A and A₃ARs in lymphocytes obtained from patients when compared with healthy subjects. A2A and A₃AR agonists inhibited nuclear factor κ-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) activation and reduced inflammatory cytokines release, such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-1β and IL-6. Moreover, A2A and A₃AR activation mediated a reduction of metalloproteinases (MMP)-1 and MMP-3. The effect of the agonists was abrogated by selective antagonists demonstrating the direct involvement of these receptor subtypes. Taken together, these data confirmed the involvement of ARs in chronic autoimmune rheumatic diseases highlighting the possibility to exploit A2A and A₃ARs as therapeutic targets, with the aim to limit the inflammatory responses usually associated with RA, AS and PsA.

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