[Frontiers in Bioscience 6, d1369-1378, October 1, 2001] 1369 T CELLS IN THE PATHOGENESIS OF SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS

1. Abstract 2. Introduction 3. T cells in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) 3.1. Pathologic evidence for T cells in disease 3.2. Immunogenetic association of HLA with autoantibodies 3.3. Identification of autoantigen-specific T cells in SLE 4. B cell-T cell interactions 5. Antigen-specific T cells in SLE 5.1. DNA-histone reactive T cells 5.2. Sm reactive T cells 5.3. U1-70kD reactive T cells 5.4. U1-A reactive T cells 6. T cell immunity to Sm and U1-70kD small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNP) 6.1. SnRNP autoantigen structure 6.2. Cloning and characterization of snRNP-reactive T cells from SLE and mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD) patients 6.3. T cell B cell responses are linked 6.4. Cytokines identified that may assist B cell help and differentiation 6.5 HLA-DR molecules serve as major histocompatibility complex (MHC) restriction elements for autoantigen presentation 6.6. T cell precursor frequency and rare phenotypes 6.7. Abnormal T cell receptor signal transduction 6.8. T cell receptor usage and molecular modeling 6.9. T cell epitope mapping using synthetic peptides 6.10 Sm motif 1, Sm motif 2 and RNA binding domains as targets of T cell immunity 6.11. Homology analyses and identification of shared structure 7. Conclusion 8. Acknowledgements 9. References