الفهرس 
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Abstract
Eumatoid arthritis is one of the commonest chronic inflammatory diseases of this tury which is accompanied by considerable disability and morbidity. RA is believed to due to persistent cell-mediated immune response to an as yet undefined antigen (s) hich may be endogenous or exogenous (Panayi et a/., 1992). However, MO/M<I> and their ,ytokine networks were shown to play an essential role in the pathophysiology of RA (Firestein et a/., 1994). Gold therapy is an effective treatment for RA although the exact , echanism of action is unknown (Farahat et a/.,1993) . . lln this work, we studied the phenotypic characteristics of MOIM<I> in normal controls PB :and in RA PB and SF. We also studied the pattern of in vitro maturation of MO, their .’ cytokine production as well as the effect of IgG and gold salts on these phenomena. from this study we concluded that: 1) IgG altered monocyte cytokine balance by increasing both the proinflammatory, TNF-a and lL-6, and the anti-inflammatory, IL-Ira and IL-IO, cytokines production while failed to stimulate IL-l p secretion. 2) The therapeutic effect of gold salts may be brought about by accelerating the maturation of monocytes to a more non-inflammatory phenotype as shown by decreasing IL-l p production while not affecting IL-lra thus altering the IL-lIIL-lra ratio. 3)-BA P~ and SF MO are mainly CDI4+ CDl- cells which can be stimulated by GM-CSF with subsequent aquisation of the phenotypic characteristics of a more mature anti¬inflammatory CD14- CDl+ cells. 171hI.