Given the heterogeneous nature of rheumatoid arthritis, and evidence for variation in the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ T cells changes in autoimmune diseases such as Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) [26-28], we first characterized the composition of peripheral blood T cell subsets in RA patients using flow cytometry. Here, CD8A is linked to systemic lupus erythematosus.