In contrast to the healthy controls that did not express much TLR4 receptor on their CD8+ T cells, RA patients expressed increased TLR4 in effector (8.92 ± 8.9% in HC vs 60.76 ± 8.7% in RA), naïve (0.28 ± 0.2% in HC vs 72.77 ± 8.4% in RA), effector memory (7.52 ± 7.0% in HC vs 30.92 ± 10.2% in RA) and central memory (6.74 ± 4.3% in HC vs 25.75 ± 8.7% in RA) subpopulations of CD8+ T lymphocytes (Fig. 3c). This evidence concerns the gene CD8A and rheumatoid arthritis.