During the last decade, important advances have occurred regarding understanding of the\npathogenesis and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Nevertheless, response to treatment is not\nuniversal, and choosing among different therapies is currently based on a trial and error approach.\nThe specific patientâ??s genetic background influences the response to therapy for many drugs: In this\nsense, genomic studies on RA have produced promising insights that could help us find an effective\ntherapy for each patient. On the other hand, despite the great knowledge generated regarding the\ngenetics of RA, most of the investigations performed to date have focused on identifying common\nvariants associated with RA, which cannot explain the complete heritability of the disease. In this\nregard, rare variants could also contribute to this missing heritability as well as act as biomarkers\nthat help in choosing the right therapy. In the present article, different aspects of genetics in the\npathogenesis and treatment of RA are reviewed, from large-scale genomic studies to specific rare\nvariant analyses. We also discuss the shared genetic architecture existing among autoimmune diseases\nand its implications for RA therapy, such as drug repositioning.
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