TNF and rheumatoid arthritis: Among RA patients with HCV, hsa-mir-122-5p was dramatically increased in patients treated with RTX (4.51 ± 1.92-fold, Fig. 3A), and the HCV viral load increased simultaneously (Fig. 1), as compared with those receiving non-biologic agents (1.57 ± 0.36-fold) or TNF-α inhibitors (1.65 ± 0.33-fold), as shown in Fig. 3A. This finding was consistent with a previous study reporting elevated levels of hsa-mir-122-5p in the sera of patients with HCV as compared with those in controls19.