MVs (Lindemann et al., 2001; MacKenzie et al., 2001) and exosomes (Qu et al., 2007) from several different cells are transporters of the strongly pro-inflammatory IL-1β, and membrane-bound TNF (mTNF) was found on synovial fibroblast exosomes from RA patients, but not from (non-autoimmune) osteoarthritis patients (Zhang et al., 2006). The gene discussed is IL1B; the disease is rheumatoid arthritis.