Identification of biomarkers associated with CD8+ T cells in rheumatoid arthritis and their pan-cancer analysis

INTRODUCTION: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a prevailing chronic progressive autoimmune disease, seriously affects the patient's quality of life. However, there is still a lack of precise treatment and management methods in clinical practice. Previous studies showed that CD8+ T cells take a lead in the progression of RA. METHODS: Genes closely related to CD8+T cells in RA were identified through multiple RA datasets, CIBERSORT, and WGCNA algorithms. Further machine learning analysis were performed to identify CD8+T cell-related genes most closely related to RA. In addition, the relationship between these three key genes and 33 cancer species was also explored in this study. RESULTS: In this study, 10 genes were identified to be closely related to CD8+T cells in RA. Machine learning analysis identified 3 CD8+T cell-related genes most closely related to RA: CD8A, GZMA, and PRF1. DISCUSSION: Our research aims to provide new ideas for the clinical treatment of RA.