Autoimmunity

From DrugPedia: A Wikipedia for Drug discovery

Autoimmunity The immune system has the capacity to mount an immune respose to virtually all molecules and/or cells. Although the capacity to respond to self antigen is present in all of us, in most instances such response results in tolerance or enery indicating that mechanism must exist to prevent or subdue autoimmune response. Moreover, auto reactive T cell and B cells as well as autoantibodies are found in people who do not have autoimmune diseases, demonstrating that immunological autoreacitivity alone is not sufficient for the development of response include inactivation and deletion of autoreactive T and B cells, active suppression by cells or cytokines, idiotypes/anti-idiotypes interactions, and the immunosuppressive adrenal hormones, the gluco-corticoides. when dampening mechanism fail or are overridden, a response directed against self-antigen can occur, resulting in autoimmune diseases that range from those which are organ specific (diabetes and thyroiditis) to those which are systemic (non-organ specific) such as systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Several important cofactors in the development of autoimmune disease have been identified and include genetics (eg. HLA asociations), gender, and age. Charecteristic of the antigen and how it is 'presented' to the immune system are also important. For example, injection of animal with chemically modified thyroid protein or with normal protein plus Freund's adjuvant can give rise to severe thyroiditis that is due to immune recognintion of normal thyroid protein. Infection by organism including Epstein Barr virus or mycoplasma can provoke autoantibody production in otherwise normal persons. In addiation, certain drugs such as procianamide which is used to treat cardiac arrhythmias, or toxic substances such as mercuric chloride and polyvinyl chloride can induce autoimmune pathology. moreover, the atack by immune efforts on virus or drug antigens that results in inappropriate tissue damage, may also be considered an autoimmune like disease.

[edit] Prevalence

Autoimmune disease are quiet prevalent in the general population, where it is estimated that approximately 3.5% of individuals are afflicted. The most common are Graves' disease/hyperthyroidism, type I diabetes, pernicious anemia, which together account for 94% of all cases. Overall women are 2.7 times more likely than men to develop an autoimmune disease, but the female:male ration can be as high as 10:1 in SLE.