Between 5-8% of the human genome consists of sequences with the viral origin, namely endogenous retroviruses. These are old pieces of viral genomes that once, millions of years ago, infected our cells and branded them with their DNA sequences. Although endogenous retroviruses no longer code for viral proteins they were once intended to build, their RNA...
Tag: <span>Autoimmune Disease</span>
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Kidney protein as potential target for treating autoimmune diseases
by American Physiological Society Effect on EAE of Npnt neutralization by the Npnt-blocking antibody. A: Npnt concentration in plasma samples from EAE mice. *P < 0.05 vs. 0 day after MOG immunization. n = 4–7 in each group. B: protocol for EAE induction with Npnt-blocking antibody treatment (top). Disease severity scores of the EAE mice...
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An immune cell ‘fingerprint’ reveals path for better treatment of autoimmune diseases
by Garvan Institute of Medical Research Strands of DNA. Credit: Dr. Kate Patterson, Garvan Institute of Medical Research Most autoimmune diseases are easy to diagnose but hard to treat. A paper published today in Science proposes using your unique immune cell fingerprint to rapidly identify which treatments will work for your autoimmune disease. “We analyzed the genomic...
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Long term exposure to air pollution linked to heightened autoimmune disease risk
BMJ Long term exposure to air pollution is linked to a heightened risk of autoimmune disease, particularly rheumatoid arthritis, connective tissue and inflammatory bowel diseases, finds research published online in the open access journal RMD Open. Environmental air pollution from vehicle exhaust and industrial output can trigger adaptive immunity–whereby the body reacts to a specific disease-causing...
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Researchers find one autoimmune disease could lead to another
by CU Anschutz Medical Campus Credit: CC0 Public Domain Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have discovered that having one kind of autoimmune disease can lead to another. The scientists serendipitously found that mice with antibody-induced rheumatoid arthritis in their joints went on to develop spinal lesions similar to those in axial spondyloarthritis (AxSpA)...
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Reverse strategy finds diagnostic marker of autoimmune disease
Instead of searching for proteins that the immune system reacts against in a specific autoimmune disease, researchers have taken the opposite approach to find diseases linked to a certain protein. By searching among patients with various skin diseases, they identified a disease linked to autoimmunity against the skin protein TGM1. The strategy, which is presented...
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Making visible the invisible: animating autoimmune disease
Scientific animation helps illustrate how the immune system turns from helper to adversary. If a picture is worth a thousand words, moving pictures are worth millions. This is the case for scientific animations, where visual representations of processes and principles help students, researchers, and the general community understand and communicate complex ideas. But such visual...
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Novel immune checkpoints have applications for cancer, autoimmune disease treatment
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT IMAGE: LAIJUN LAI, RESEARCH PROFESSOR IN THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, HEALTH AND NATURAL RESOURCES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT. CREDIT: UCONN PHOTO The immune system is a complex balancing act; if it overreacts or underreacts to foreign molecules, there can be serious health consequences. For cancer patients, tumor progression is often accompanied...
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Study finds especially high rates of lupus in certain racial/ethnic groups
WILEY The US prevalence of the autoimmune disease lupus is 72.8 cases per 100,000 individuals, according to an analysis of population-based registries. The analysis, which is published in Arthritis & Rheumatology, found that the rate is 9 times higher for females than males (128.7 vs. 14.6 per 100,000), and it’s highest among American Indians/Alaska Natives and...
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Scientists develop method to more efficiently isolate and identify rare T cells
by University of California, Los Angeles Dr. Owen Witte, MD. Credit: UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center Scientists from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have developed a technique that will enable researchers to more efficiently isolate and identify rare T cells that are capable of targeting viruses, cancer and other diseases. The...