T cell research hints at causes of autoimmune diseases

New research has provided insights into why some autoimmune disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, take decades to manifest.

A team from St Jude Children's Research Hospital in the US published their findings in the journal Nature Immunology.

They investigated how the T cells, the body's master immune regulators, function.

It was found that the cells do not use simple on/off switches to govern the cellular machinery that regulates their development and function. Instead, the cells make use of sophisticated molecular controls to adjust their activities.

The researchers found that the cells possess a great number of proteins which help transmit the control signals – known as immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs (ITAMS).

In tests in mice, it was found that variations in the number and type of functional ITAMs dictated if the animals developed autoimmune diseases.

Dr Dario Vignali explained that the findings hinted at why diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus can take years to develop.

"Our findings hint that this delayed onset could be explained by subtle defects in the molecular controls on T cells," he added.

"We believe this idea that T cell signalling acts more like a rheostat (a type of complex resistor used in electronics) than an on/off switch offers significant new insights into how T cell development and function is controlled."

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