View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/press/20049.pdf
ACCOMPANYING COMMENTARY: Functional obstruction: the renal pelvis rules
AUTHOR CONTACT:
Cathy Mendelsohn
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA.
Phone: 212-305-1591
Fax: 212-305-6851
E-mail: clm20@columbia.edu
View the PDF of this commentary at: https://www.the-jci.org/press/21402.pdf
The APCs of Autoimmune Disease
Automimmune diseases are a complex set of disorders that all result from a failure of the immune system to recognize "self" due to the presence of autoreactive T cells. The body has several means of removing autoreactive T cells, including T cell deletion in the thymus and peripheral tolerance for T cells that escape thymic deletion. These mechanisms, however, fail in some individuals, resulting in an autoimmune response that can be crippling. Many of the factors, both environmental and genetic, involved in autoimmune disease development remain a mystery. Vijay Kuchroo and colleagues of Brigham and Woman's Hospital and Harvard Medical School used autoreactive transgenic T cells in an experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE)resistant mouse strain and now present data showing that the activation state of APCs plays a role in the development of autoimmune diseases (pages 990997). T cell number and response were the same in both the transgenic EAE-resistant and EAE-sensitive backgrounds; however, the APCs in the EAE-resistant background had a lower activation state and lower T cell stimulating response than those in the EAE-sensitive strain. Furthermore, innate immune receptor activation of the APCs resulted in EAE development even in the resistant background, providing insigh
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Contact: Laurie Goodman
lgoodman@the-jci.org
212-342-4159
Journal of Clinical Investigation
2-Apr-2004