Recent findings support a central role for TLRs in both foreign Ag-driven immune responses and systemic autoimmune diseases mediated by B lymphocytes. In vitro studies have shown that the Ag receptors (BCRs) on B cells specific for nuclear autoantigens can facilitate the delivery of these autoantigens to the endocytic compartment, resulting in activation of the nucleic acid-specific TLRs presen...

The association of a specific autoantibody response with distinct disease phenotypes is observed in both autoimmune diseases and cancer. Although the underlying mechanisms remain unclear, it is likely that unique properties of disease-specific autoantigens expressed in the relevant target cells play a role. It has recently been observed that the majority of autoantigens targeted across the spec...

Systemic lupus erythematosus is a multisystem autoimmune disease in which the autoantibody response targets a variety of autoantigens of diverse subcellular location. We show here that these autoantigens are clustered in two distinct populations of blebs at the surface of apoptotic cells. The population of smaller blebs contains fragmented endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and ribosomes, as well as th...

The observation that revelation of immunocryptic epitopes in self antigens may initiate the autoimmune response has prompted the search for processes which induce novel fragmentation of autoantigens as potential initiators of autoimmunity. The reversible ischemia reperfusion which characterizes scleroderma has focused attention on reactive oxygen species as molecules which might induce autoanti...

BACKGROUND Pituitary autoantibodies are found in autoimmune hypophysitis and other conditions. They are a marker of pituitary autoimmunity but currently have limited clinical value. The methods used for their detection lack adequate sensitivity and specificity, mainly because the pathogenic pituitary autoantigen(s) are not known and therefore antigen-based immunoassays have not been developed. ...

Lymphocytic hypophysitis was first recognized postmortem, then by biopsy, but detection of antipituitary autoantibodies by immunofluorescence has proved unsatisfactory. Immunoblotting has the dual advantages of increased specificity and identification of the mol wt of autoantigens. Sera from 115 patients and 52 normal subjects were immunoblotted against human autopsy pituitary cytosolic protein...

The current acceptable notion regarding autoimmune diseases is that autoimmunity and autoimmune diseases are autoantigen driven. This pathogenetic mechanism is very much conceivable according to theories in classical immunology, namely, if there is a ”reactive” antibody, it must have been generated upon immunization with an antigen. Definitely, a support to this notion is gained from the fact s...

[16]. Verge CF, Gianani R, Yu L, Pietropaolo M, Smith T, Jackson RA, et al. Late progression to diabetes and evidence for chronic β-cell autoimmunity in identical twins of patients with type I diabetes. Diabetes 1995;44(10):1176-9. Abstract[17]. Scott J. The spontaneously diabetic BB rat: sites of the defects leading to autoimmunity and diabetes mellitus. A review. Curr TopMicrobiol...

PURPOSE The therapeutic importance of immune responses against single versus multiple antigens is poorly understood. There also remains insufficient understanding whether responses to one subset of antigens are more significant than another. Autoantibodies are frequent in cancer patients. They can pose no biological significance or lead to debilitating paraneoplastic syndromes. Autoreactivity h...

Recently we demonstrated that a high percentage of atopic dermatitis (AD) patients displayed specific immunoglobulin E reactivity to human proteins. Here we show that IgE autoreactivity is found predominantly in AD patients with severe skin manifestations and reveal the molecular nature of four IgE autoantigens. An expression cDNA library constructed from a human epithelial cell line (A 431) wa...