Peripheral CD4+ naïve T cell remodeling and MMP1-associated inflammatory signatures in acute gouty arthritis

BackgroundGouty arthritis (GA) has long been considered a disease primarily driven by innate immune activation, whereas the contribution of adaptive immune remodeling remains incompletely understood. MethodsIn this study, we integrated bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR), CyTOF immune profiling, single-cell transcriptomic analysis, plasma proteomics, and prospective clinical follow-up analyses to investigate immune-associated features and recurrence-related inflammatory signatures in acute GA.

Bidirectional two-sample MR analyses were performed using publicly available European ancestry GWAS datasets to evaluate genetic association patterns between 731 immune cell phenotypes and gout. Peripheral immune remodeling was subsequently characterized in Chinese cohorts using CyTOF analysis of PBMC samples from GA-A (n = 25), GA-R (n = 22), and healthy controls (n = 9), together with re-analysis of a public PBMC-derived single-cell RNA-seq dataset.

Cell-cell communication, pathway enrichment, and differential expression analyses were performed to explore inflammatory programs associated with acute flares.