Assessing the Role of DNA Methylation-Derived Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Table 1

Sample characteristics of datasets.

Study	Characteristics	Reference group	Comparison group	value
New onset RA (GSE42861) (); Reference: Liu et al. [17]		Controls ()	ACPA-associated cases ()
	Mean mdNLR (SD)	2.02 (1.37)	4.67 (6.28)	<2×10–16^#
	Mean age (range)	52.75 (20–70)	51.15 (18–69)	0.10^#
	Gender
	Males	96 (29%)	101 (29%)	0.99^@
	Females	239 (71%)	253 (71%)
	Smoking
	Current	89 (27%)	111 (31%)	0.27^@
	Former	108 (32%)	120 (34%)
	Never	101 (30%)	92 (26%)
	Occasional	35 (10%)	31 (9%)
	NA	2 (1%)	0 (0%)
Preclinical RA (ALSPAC sample during pregnancy) (); Reference: Relton et al. [20]		Controls ()	Cases ()
	Mean mdNLR (SD)	2.78 (1.30)	2.65 (1.37)	0.55^#
	Mean age (range)	29.32 (16–41)	29.30 (21–40)	0.79^#
	Number of missing age	1	1
	Smoking
	Current	25 (13%)	7 (15%)	0.64^@
	Former	49 (24%)	13 (27%)
	Never	125 (62%)	27 (56%)
	NA	1 (1%)	1 (2%)
	Mean time to diagnosis in years (SD)	—	13.6 (4.8)	NA
Prevalent treated RA (ALSPAC 18 years after pregnancy) (); Reference: Relton et al. [20]		Controls ()	Cases (=21)
	Mean mdNLR (SD)	1.35 (0.68)	1.30 (0.41)	0.97^#
	Mean age (range)	47.42 (35–59)	48.45 (40–58)	0.31^#
	Number of missing age	21	1
	Smoking
	Current	11 (6%)	4 (19%)	0.11^@
	Former	75 (37%)	8 (38%)
	Never	111 (55%)	9 (43%)
	NA	3 (2%)	0 (0%)
TNFi response dataset (BRAGGSS) (); Reference: Plant et al. [21]		Good responders ()	Poor responders ()
	Mean mdNLR (SD)	2.09 (1.15)	2.22 (1.84)	0.57^#
	Mean age (range)	54.6 (28–78)	59.9 (36–87)	0.07^#
	Gender
	Males	8 (22%)	6 (17%)	0.77^@
	Females	28 (78%)	29 (83%)
	Smoking
	Current	5 (14%)	4 (11%)	0.70^@
	Former	14 (39%)	10 (29%)
	Never	11 (31%)	12 (34%)
	NA	6 (16%)	9 (26%)
	Mean DAS28 score (SD)	5.7 (0.70)	5.5 (1.14)	0.28^#
	Mean HAQ score (SD)	1.7 (0.52)	2.0 (0.59)	0.06^#

^#Wilcoxon rank sum test; ^@Fisher’s exact test or Chi-squared test.