autoimmune disease tagged posts

HSP-specific T cells infiltrate the retinas and augment glaucomatous neurodegeneration

Unexpected findings show that the body’s own immune system destroys retinal cells. A new study from MIT and Massachusetts Eye and Ear has found that glaucoma may in fact be an autoimmune disorder. In a study of mice, the researchers showed that the body’s own T cells are responsible for the progressive retinal degeneration seen in glaucoma. Furthermore, these T cells appear to be primed to attack retinal neurons as the result of previous interactions with bacteria that normally live in our body.

The discovery suggests that it could be possible to develop new treatments for glaucoma by blocking this autoimmune activity, the researchers say...

Highlights •Ablation of IRF4 induces transplant acceptance by establishing T cell dysfunction •IRF4 represses PD-1, Helios, and other molecules associated with T cell dysfunction •Irf4‒/‒ T cell dysfunction is initially reversible but later becomes irreversible •Trametinib inhibits IRF4, abrogates EAE development, and prolongs allograft survival

Wenhao Chen, Ph.D., a scientist in the Immunobiology and Transplant Science Center at the Houston Methodist Research Institute, and his colleagues have identified a critical switch that controls T-cell function and dysfunction and have discovered a pathway to target it...

Blood cell analysis identifies 1000s of disease-related genes. Using a pioneering technique developed at the Babraham Institute, results are beginning to make biological sense of the mountains of genetic data linking very small changes in our DNA sequence to our risk of disease. Discovering these missing links will inform the design of new drugs and future treatments for a range of diseases.

Comparing the genome sequences of 100s of 1000s of patients and healthy volunteers has revealed single-letter changes found more frequently in the DNA sequences of individuals with specific diseases. In most cases, the disease-linked changes occur in the large swaths of DNA located between genes, ie junk DNA...

This is a schematic of how a “chimeric autoantibody receptor,” or CAAR, that displays fragments of the autoantigen Dsg3 helps fight an autoimmune disease called pemphigus vulgaris, a condition in which a patient’s own immune cells attack Dsg3, which normally adheres skin cells. Credit: Christoph T. Ellebrecht, MD, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Preclinical study shows that engineered T cells can selectively target the antibody-producing cells that cause autoimmune disease. The autoimmune disease the team studied is pemphigus vulgaris (PV), a condition in which a patient’s own immune cells attack a protein called desmoglein-3 (Dsg3) that normally adheres skin cells...