Clonal sharing of CD8+ T-cells links skin and joint inflammation in psoriatic arthritis

Abstract

We hypothesised that skin and joint inflammation in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is linked in terms of CD8+ T-cell phenotype and clonality. We employed scRNAseq to directly compare the transcriptional signature and T-cell receptor repertoire of memory T-cells from paired skin and synovial tissue and/or fluid from patients with PsA. We identified an enrichment of type-17 CD8+ tissue-resident memory (TRM) T-cells in both skin and joint, with a stronger IL-17 signature in the skin than the joint. Several T-cell clones were shared between the skin and joint and these shared clones tended to have the same signature at both sites, characterised by increased expression of genes associated with a cytotoxic, tissue-resident phenotype. Our findings support the hypothesis that skin and joint inflammation in PsA is linked in terms of T-cell clonality and raises the possibility that specific T-cells migrate between these compartments to propagate inflammation across both sites.