Autoimmune liver diseases, such as autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) and primary biliary cirrhosis, often have severe consequences for the patient. Because of a lack of appropriate animal models, not much is known about their potential viral etiology. Infection by liver-tropic viruses is one possibility for the breakdown of self-tolerance. Therefore, we infected mice with adenovirus Ad5 expressing hum...

1Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, The First Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen 361003, China 2Laboratory of Autoimmunity, School of Biological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968, USA 3Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-7660, USA 4Department of Rheumatology, Peking Un...

BACKGROUND Autoimmune hepatitis/primary biliary cirrhosis overlap syndrome, lymphangioleiomyomatosis/tuberous sclerosis complex (LAM-TSC), and sarcoidosis are three rare diseases. Here we present, to the best of our knowledge, the first description of a patient with the coexistence of these three diseases. CASE PRESENTATION A 47-year-old woman affected by LAM-TSC and primary biliary cirrosis/...

A 50-year-old woman was diagnosed with acute-onset autoimmune hepatitis. She did not respond to steroid therapy including pulse therapy, and was subsequently treated with living donor-liver transplantation 36 days after the beginning of steroid therapy. Except for a period of transient mild acute rejection, her liver function tests remained within a normal range for 2.5 years after the operatio...

Microchimerism is defined by the presence of circulating cells, bi-directionally transferred from one genetically distinct individual to another. The acquisition and persistence of fetal cell microchimerism, small numbers of genetically disparate cells from the fetus in the mother, is now a well-recognized consequence of normal pregnancy. Some of the autoimmune diseases that show a predilection...

Proteomics technologies enable profiling of autoantibody responses using biological fluids derived from patients with autoimmune disease. They provide a powerful tool to characterize autoreactive B-cell responses in diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, autoimmune diabetes, and systemic lupus erythematosus. Autoantibody profiling may serve purposes including classificatio...

1 Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, The First Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen 361003, China 2Department of Biological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, 500 West University Avenue, El Paso, TX 79968, USA 3Microbiology, College of Medicine University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-7660, USA 4Department of Rheumatology, Peking Union Medical College Hosp...

multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease caused by damage to the myelin of the nerve cells in the spinal cord and brain, ms was classified into 4 types including: relasping/remitting (rr) primary/progressive (pp), secondary/progressive (sp), progressive/relapsing (pr). pr ms is one of the severe forms of ms that lead to inflammation associated physical, mental and vision dysfunction. because...