AsianScientist (Aug. 22, 2025) – Systemic sclerosis, commonly referred to as scleroderma, is a rare connective tissue disorder with a complex and unknown cause. In addition, systemic sclerosis can have serious implications for internal organs like the lungs and kidneys. To understand how immune cells vary and how that relates to different symptoms, researchers studied blood immune cells from the patients who hadn’t taken immune-suppressing drugs and analyzed them cell by cell, looking for differences in gene expression. These monocytes activate inflammatory pathways and can transform into harmful macrophages – innate immune cells that usually engulf and digest pathogens – at sites of tissue injury. While immune cells generally protect the body, they can become detrimental when incorrectly activated due to changes in gene expression.