Endocrine and Organ Specific Autoimmunity
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Edited By:George S. EisenbarthUniversity of Colorado ISBN: 978-1-57059-538-7 Published: 1999-10-01 |
Organ specific autoimmune disorders as a group are responsible for a major portion of all debilitating and at times life threatening chronic diseases. Over the past decade more has been learned concerning the molecular pathogenesis of these disorders than during the past 100 years. This includes identification of genes and genetic loci responsible for susceptibility, specific molecules whose ingestion or whose endogenous exposure (e.g. oncogenic autoimmunity) trigger disease, cloning of target autoantigens, identification of molecular pathways of pathogenesis, and discovery particularly in animal models of antigen specific therapies. This book brings together under an integrated theme, international experts who have contributed to the study of both specific autoimmune disorders and often the study of multiple organ specific autoimmune diseases. Both basic researchers and clinical investigators have contributed to the book and the current and future impact upon clinical care of our improving understanding of disease pathogenesis is highlighted. It also includes the diagnosis and prediction of organ specific autoimmune diseases with assay based upon cloned target autoantigens. The future will test our ability to prevent or ameliorate disease with these same molecules. In the study of the multiple diseases reviewed it is hoped that many of the roads will lead to the same destination, namely molecular disease prevention and it is hoped that the current book will help in reaching this goal.
Chapters available from this book
Ocular Autoimmunity
Luiz V. Rizzo and Robert B. Nussenblatt
Uveitis is a term originally used to describe an inflammatory process of the uvea (the median layer of the eye or tunica vasculosa bulbi, which includes the iris, ciliary body and choroid).1 This term however, has been used loosely to describe any intraocular inflammati...
Autoimmune Mechanisms in the Pathogenesis of Diabetic Neuropathy
Aaron I. Vinik, Gary L. Pittenger, Zvonko Milicevic and Jadrank Knezevic-Cuca
Our knowledge of the physiology and pathophysiology of immune responses in the cen-tral (CNS) and peripheral nervous systems (PNS) has grown over the last decade. This new information has facilitated advances in experimental and clinical investigations and the application of new therapie...
Multiple Sclerosis
Konstantin Balashov and Howard L. Weiner
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that affects CNS myelin. MS is characterized by multiple perivascular lesions found throughout the white matter in the brain and spinal cord, which are often periventricular. Although the cause and pat...
Etiopathogenesis of Myasthenia Gravis (MG)
Jean-François Bach, Ana Maria Yamamoto, Farid Djabiri and Henri-Jean Garchon
Myasthenia gravis (MG) is not one of the most common autoimmune disease (approximate prevalence of 0.1 per thousand in Western Europe) but it is certainly one of the most thoroughly studied autoimmune diseases. There is a very useful experimental animal model, induced by sensitization ag...
Type I Diabetes Mellitus
Eiji Kawasaki, Ronald G. Gill and George S. Eisenbarth
Diabetes mellitus is a series of disorders characterized by absolute or relative insulin deficiency that leads to hyperglycemia and altered glucose metabolism. These disorders are associated pathologically with micro- and macrovascular disease leading to accelerated arteriosclerosis, and...
Insulin Autoimmune Syndrome (IAS, Hirata Disease)
Yasuko Uchigata and Yukimasa Hirata
Although HLA and disease association has been studied for many diseases, only four dis- eases have been identified in which almost all patients have the same HLA antigen; B27 in 88% of ankylosing spondylitis,1 DR4 in 91% of patients with pemphigus vulgaris,2 DR2 in ...
Insights into the Molecular Mechanisms of the Autoimmune Thyroid Diseases
Horia Vlase and Terry F. Davies
The human AITDs1 include hyperthyroid Graves' disease (classical Graves' disease with thyrotoxicosis), euthyroid Graves' disease (without thyrotoxicosis), both with or without Graves' orbitopathy, and autoimmune thyroiditis (Hashimoto's disease), including the goitrous form (c...
Celiac Disease
Fei Bao, Marian Rewers, Fraser Scott and George S. Eisenbarth
Celiac disease is a common, often asymptomatic immune-mediated disorder with a preva-lence of approximately 1/200 in Western populations. The disorder is typically associated with intestinal lesions leading to diarrhea and weight loss. In the most severely diseased patients death occurs ...
Oncogenic Autoimmunity
Robert P. Friday and Massimo Pietropaolo
Toward the end of the nineteenth century Louis Pasteur demonstrated that widespread immune–mediated self–destruction of neural tissue occurs in animals exposed to crude extracts of central nervous system (CNS) antigens. Based on these observations, Paul Ehrlich hypothesized tha...
Autoimmune Polyendocrine Syndrome Type II
Maria J. Redondo and George S. Eisenbarth
The two major autoimmune polyendocrine syndromes are termed autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type I (APS-I) and APS-II.1-4 These syndromes are of particular interest in that they have led to the identification of a series of diseases of autoimmune etiology5-8 and t...
Autoimmune Polyendocrine Syndrome Type I (APECED)
Jaakko Perheentupa and Aaro Miettinen
This disease is known by many names, most commonly as autoimmune polyglandular syndrome type I (APS–I). We prefer the name autoimmune polyendocrinopathy-candidiasis–ectodermal dystrophy (APECED), because it reminds of the three groups of components of this disease. "Syndrome," ...
Immunobiology of Autoimmunity
Donald Bellgrau and George S. Eisenbarth
Autoimmunity can be defined as immune responses directed against selfantigens and an autoimmune disorder as a disease which results from autoimmunity.1,2 The cells of the immune system with "antigenic specificity" are B and T lymphocytes.3 An essential fea...
