Autoimmunity and pulmonary hypertension

Main Category: Respiratory / Asthma
Article Date: 28 Nov 2005 - 0:00 PDT

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For several decades researchers and clinicians have known that patients with high blood pressure in their lungs, a condition known as 'pulmonary hypertension', often have diseases characterised by inappropriate immune system activity collectively referred to as 'autoimmunity'.

With the growing appreciation of how autoimmunity can affect various organs, researchers are drawing closer to understanding how autoimmune injury to blood vessels may be leading to the development of pulmonary hypertension, a frequently lethal condition.

In their article, Mark R. Nicolls (Dept of Medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, USA) and his colleagues relate emerging concepts in the field of immunology to disease development in pulmonary hypertension. Specifically, the authors discuss the possible roles of regulatory T cells, autoantibodies, mast cells and other components of autoimmune responses with how they may be causing or exacerbating this condition.

Although the simultaneous occurrence of pulmonary hypertension and autoimmunity is a relatively old observation, this new model of disease development can help explain seemingly unrelated aspects of this condition. For example, a molecule implicated in certain inherited forms of pulmonary hypertension can now be interpreted in the context of its regulation of the immune system.

By giving new consideration to autoimmunity as a potential cause of disease "it is likely that a better understanding of the exact role of autoimmunity and inflammation will help defining novel therapeutic targets in this devastating condition", stress L. Mouthon, L. Guillevin and M. Humbert in their accompanying editorial.

Title of the original article:
Autoimmunity and pulmonary hypertension: a perspective

The European Respiratory Journal is the peer-reviewed scientific publication of the European Respiratory Society (more than 7,500 specialists in lung diseases and respiratory medicine in Europe, the United States and Australia).

EUROPEAN RESPIRATORY JOURNAL (ERJ), Vol. 26, No 6
http://erj.ersjournals.com