Autoimmunity Flashcards
What two key features lead to autoimmunity?
- Failure of self-tolerance (self-reactive B or T cells)
2. Tissue destruction due to inflammation
What is the difference between autoimmunity and autoimmune disease?
autoreactive Ab or self-reactive T cells cause autoimmunity, but they will not cause disease unless there is inflammation (due to type II, III, or IV hypersensitivity)
What are the 5 major symptoms of inflammation?
- Heat
- Redness
- Swelling
- Pain
- loss of function
Are autoimmune diseases usually acute or progressive (chronic)?
What two things tend to cause acute/transient autoimmunity?
They are chronic and worsen with time, although there can be acute flares.
Acute/transient autoimmune disease is caused by drugs or infection
What is central tolerance?
Censoring of B or T cells in the primary lymphoid organs to make sure they are not self-reactive
What is peripheral tolerance?
censoring in secondary lymphoid organs
How does central tolerance of B cells work in the bone marrow?
B-cell editing - at the light chain locus
Anergy- if weakly reactive
Deletion- via apoptosis if strongly reactive
How does central tolerance of T cells work in the thymus?
High avidity–> deleted (negative selection)
No avidity–> deleted (neglect)
Low avidity–> survives and proliferates
AIRE presents tissue from the body that isn’t circulating through the thymus so T-cells will not be reactive to it
What are the three major ways peripheral tolerance are maintained?
- Sequester Ag
- Privileged sites
- regulatory cells (Treg, TGFb, IL-10)
What are 4 ways that antigens can be sequestered in the periphery to maintain tolerance?
- potentially autoreactive T and B may not gain access to the autoantigen tissue because it is not inflamed (lack addressins)
- There may not be MHC II molecules on the autoantigen tissue
- Most cells in the body lack CD80/86 which give signal 2 to the T-cell
- B-cells unactivated by Tcell CD40L undergo apoptosis via FAS/FASL
What are “immune privileged” sites of the body?
eyes, brain, uterus, testes
What are 3 ways that the body ensures B and T cells are not activated in immune privileged sites?
- physical barrier- BBB to block entrance of B and T
- Suppressive cytokines (IL-10, TGF-B)
- FASL expression on privileged sites to initiate apoptosis if B or T cells breach the physical barrier/get past suppressive cytokines
What cells in the body regulate autoreactivity of T and B cells? What TF activates these cells? What cytokines does it produce?
CD25, FOXP3 derived Treg cells supress the immune system by secreting IL-10 and TGF-B
Patients with mutations in AIRE develop what disorder?
APECED (APS1) where there is autoimmunity in endocrine glands due to the failure of self-antigens to be presented in the thymus
Patients with mutations in FAS/FASL develop what disorder?
ALPS- autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome because there is an accumulation of B and T cells that fail to be deleted (by fas)
What molecule downstream of fas can also cause ALPS?
caspases
Patients with defects in FOXP3 develop what disorder?
IPEX- because of defects in Treg function
Why does trauma increase the chance of an autoimmune response?
It breaches physical barriers and releases sequestered or privileged site antigens