Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về y học được đăng trên tạp chí y học General Psychiatry cung cấp cho các bạn kiến thức về ngành y đề tài: Lymphopenia and autoimmune diseases. | Arthritis Research Therapy Vol 6 No 4 Schulze-Koops Viewpoint Lymphopenia and autoimmune diseases Hendrik Schulze-Koops Nikolaus Fiebiger Center for Molecular Medicine Clinical Research Group III and Department of Internal Medicine III and Institute for Clinical Immunology University of Erlangen-Nuremberg Glueckstrasse 6 91054 Erlangen Germany Corresponding author Hendrik Schulze-Koops Schulze-Koops@ Received 24 May 2004 Accepted 8 Jun 2004 Published 22 Jun 2004 Arthritis Res Ther 2004 6 178-180 DOI ar1208 2004 BioMed Central Ltd Autoimmunity induced by lymphopenia More than 30 years ago the occurrence of spontaneous autoimmune thyroiditis was observed in rodents that were made severely T-cell lymphopenic by neonatal thymectomy or by thymectomy at week five after birth together with concomitant low dose irradiation 1 2 . Following these reports numerous studies have shown that manipulations that generate functional T-cell lymphopenia result in the development of a variety of organ-specific autoimmune diseases in animal models reviewed in 3 . Impressive examples of such manipulations include IL-2 knockout mice that develop prominent autoimmune colitis 4 T-cell receptor-alpha chain deficient mice that develop inflammatory bowel disease associated with an array of autoantibodies 5 6 T-cell receptor-a chain transgenic mice 7 neonatal application of cytotoxic intervention protocols such as cyclosporine A 8 total lymphoid irradiation 9 or thymectomy 10 and lymphotoxic treatment of adult animals 11 . It was subsequently found that adoptive transfer of T cells into congenic immunocompromised hosts initiated the spontaneous development of aggressive inflammatory autoimmunity in recipients 12 . Further studies revealed that the development of autoimmunity in hosts was critically dependent on both transfer of alpha beta CD4-positive T cells and T-cell deficiency in the recipients. Together these data indicate that lymphopenia promotes the .
