... design of the study. MAL-N and JLVcarried out the HLA determination, analyzed and interpreted the data, and helped in the manuscript preparation. All authors read and approved the finalmanuscript.AcknowledgementsWe ... may be present in other diseases and in healthy older individuals [5]. In contrast, anti-citrulli-nated protein antibodies (ACPAs) seem to play a pivotalrole in the pathogenesis of RA as they ... oligonucleotide.Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests.Authors' contributionsAB, AC, JM, EM-M and DP-S participated in the design of the study, helped in the statistical...