Autoimmunity: an overview Flashcards
Which genes often confer the highest risk of AI disease?
HLA genes
What is thought to be the reason that autoimmunity is increasing in prevalence?
hygiene hypothesis
Why are autoimmune diseases thought to be more common in females?
sex hormone-determined differences in immune phenotype
What suggests that environment plays a bigger role in most AI diseases than genetics?
concordance between monozygotic twins isless than 40%
What are the general environmental risk factors for AI disease?
gut microbiota species differences; infectious disease hx and vitamin D levels
What is the molecular mimicry of AI disease?
antigenic cross-reactivity between microbial pathogens and self initiates autoimmunity
Give an example of infection-driven autoimmunity?
Guillain Barre after campylobacter or reactive arthritis following campylobacter, shigella or salmonella
What is the targeted antigen in Guillain barre?
glycolipids eg GA1; GM1
What is the targeted antigen in addisons?
steroid 21-hydroxylase
What is the targeted antigen in AI hepatitis?
liver-kidney microsome 1
What suggests that tolerance generally operates efficiently
for the majority of proteins encoded by the genome have not been seen to occur as target autoantigens
What cells are involved in peripheral tolerance?
regulatory T cells
What is the natural FOXP3 mutant mouse called?
scurfy
What happens to scurfy mice?
spontaneous, multi-organ autoimmunity and wasting diseases
What suggests that NOD diabetes is caused by reduced numbers and function of Tregs?
small numbers of expanded Tregs transferred to NODs reverse even ongoing disease
what have been the value of genome-wide association studies?
genetic complexity of AI susceptbility; shown some disease-common and some disease-unique genes and pathways; reinforced the immunological aetiology of diseases–hope of predicting highly at risk individuals for screening and early tx
What was the first evidence for the importance of Th12 cells in autoimmunity?
when knocking out Th17 pathways, no longer able to induce EAE in mice, demonstrating their role in the disease previously thought to be Th1
Give an example of a monoclonal antibody in studies for MS treatment?
secukinumab- antiIL17
What was the first monoclonal antibody to be approved for the tx of MS?
natalizumab
What is the function of natiluzimab?
prevents leukocyte migration into the CNS
Give an example of a disease driven by a specific gut microbiota species?
segmented filamentous bacteria drive AI arthritis via Th17; enhanced susceptbility to RA caused by prevotella copri
What is the function of Clostridia clusters for T cell development?
specific species are needed to fully expand Tregs
What disease is related to a lack of clostridia clusters and therefore Tregs?
UC
How have stem cells been used in autoimune disease?
studies using autologous HSC transplantation to reprogramme immune repertoire in severe AI disease has been successful
what demonstrates the complex relationship between immune-mediated diseases and a shared pathobiology?
familial clustering of multiple diseases; epidemiological co-occurence and the efficacy of therapies across diseases
What is the purpose of GWAS studies?
locate regions of the genome harbouring disease risk alleles by comparing allel frequencies between cases and controls, from which the effect size can be estimated
What is the effect size?
proportion of disease risk attributable to each gene region
What is the general effect size at each genomic locus?
small
Why do disease risk variants have larger effects on cellular processes than disease suscepbility?
risk variants perturb disease-relevant cellular functions that alter an individuals overall likelihood of disease but are not sufficient to cause disease by themselves
Give an example of where risk variants from GWAS do not currently explain all the genetic component of disease risk?
about 50% of the genetic component of MS is explained by currently known association
What may explain the missing heritability from GWAS studies?
independent variants modify each otehr to generate greater-than-expected risk effects- epistasis between loci or pathways; rare variants not captured by GWAS or an overestimation of the heritability of idsease
What is the percentage of risk alleles with evidence of association with multiple diseases?
44%
What are the implications of discrete, shared mechanisms underlying multiple diseases?
1- expansion of current therapies and new treatments based on shared disease pathways, 2- possibility of classifying patients by defects in such patwhays rather than clinical symptoms
What shows that autoimmunty can be provoked by inducing a specific adaptive response to self antigens?
autoimmune disease can be induced by injection of self tissues taken from a genetically identical animal and mixed with strong adjuvants
give an example of a disease where autoantigens are cleared from the body?
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
Give examples of autoimmune diseases in which effector T cells seem to be the main destructive agents?
T1DM; psoriasis; IBD; MS
What does the ability for a disease to be transferred from a disease individual to a healthy one by transferring antibodies or T cells indicate?
that the disease is autoimmune in nature and prooves the involvement of the transferred material in the pathological process