Review 
Anti-rheumatoid drugs advancements: New insights into the molecular 
treatment of rheumatoid arthritis 
Reda Ben Mrid, Najat Bouchmaa, Hassan Ainani, Rachid El Fatimy, Gabriel Malka, 
Loubna Mazini * 
Institute of Biological Sciences (ISSB-P), Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), 43150 Ben-Guerir, Morocco 
ARTICLE INFO 
Keywords: 
Rheumatoid arthritis 
Conventional drugs 
RNA therapy 
Phosphate-based treatments 
Cannabinoid-based drugs 
ABSTRACT 
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of more than 100 types of arthritis.Under normal conditions, the synovial mem-
brane is almost acellular, consisting of a thin layer of cells composed 
mainly of macrophage and fibroblast-derived cells [2], while it displays 
an inflammatory phenotype and becomes more hypertrophic in patients 
with RA [3].These consist of the activation and infiltration into the 
synovial tissue of different immune cells, mainly macrophages, T cells 
and dendritic cells (DCs), in addition to B cells, neutrophils and mast 
cells, which are all involved in the production of different chemical 
mediators and (interleukins) ILs, making the tissue inflammatory [4].Indeed, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs 
(NSAIDS) and corticosteroids are a widely used category of molecules 
reported to be very efficient for alleviating pain and stiffness in RA pa-
tients, without moderating the disease progression.Contents lists available at ScienceDirect 
Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy 
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biopha 
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2022.113126 
Received 4 April 2022; Received in revised form 13 May 2022; Accepted 13 May 2Non-steroidal anti-
inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), corticosteroids, and disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) remain the 
most known treatments used against RA. However, not all patients respond well to these drugs and therefore, 
new solutions are of immense need to improve the disease outcomes.Even worse, if RA is poorly controlled, other 
pathological manifestations may be developed, including peri-
carditis/pleuritis, keratitis, small vessel vasculitis, and pulmonary 
granulomas [2].The disease-
modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), are another class of mole-
cules used for the management of inflammation including conventional 
synthetic DMARDs, targeted synthetic DMARDs (tsDMARDs), and bio-
logical DMARDs (bDMARDs).However, 
efforts are nowadays devoted in order to develop new DMARDs with low 
* Corresponding author.1.