TLR4 and rheumatoid arthritis: To determine spontaneous as well as TLR and NOD ligand-induced production of cytokines by monocytes, we incubated whole blood of 42 patients with axSpA (32 male, 10 female; mean age of 37.2 ± 9.8 years), 8 patients with RA (2 male, 6 female; mean age of 59.7 ± 18.8 years; all patients on prednisolone and DMARD treatment, no treatment with biologics), and 26 controls (13 male; 13 female; mean age of 35.4 ± 7.1 years) without any stimulator or added 2.5 μg/ml MDP (NOD-2 ligand), 100 ng/ml LPS (TLR4 ligand), 1 μg/ml FSL-1 (TLR2/6 ligand), or 5 μg/ml PAM3CSK4 (TLR1/2 ligand).