STAT3 and rheumatoid arthritis: Scrutiny of the genes observed to be up-regulated in naïve CD4+ T cells after 6 h of IL-6 exposure (t1) compared with untreated cells confirmed the presence of a substantial component of our previously described 12-gene signature that discriminates early RA patients from disease controls, including genes known to be regulated by STAT-3 (2, 4) (Figure 3B).