Mechanisms of immunity and inflammation in Brucella-induced arthritis

"Treatment of unresolved sterile arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis involves eliminating or dampening host inflammatory responses. While inflammation may inflict severe articular pathology to the host during infectious arthritis, inflammation may also be vital for pathogen restriction. This creates a paradox when identifying appropriate treatments for brucellar arthritis as administration of anti-inflammatories may increase bacterial replication in the host. Thus, it is vital to characterize what inflammatory responses are helpful and harmful to the host. Thus, the focus of this research was to understand the inflammatory mediators inducing inflammation and arthritis, and to determine what inflammatory responses are needed in order to clear Brucella during brucellosis. We describe experimental Brucella-induced arthritis as an effective tool in understanding both adaptive and innate inflammatory responses to Brucella as swelling correlates with inflammation and can be monitored in longitudinal studies."--Purpose and experiement approach