ABSTRACT
Autoimmune diseases are characterized by persistent inammation mediated by perturbation in the immune system. They are usually accompanied by the presence of autoantibodies or autoreactive T cells. However, in some diseases the defect may lie in the innate immune system like auto-inammatory diseases. The classical example of autoimmune disease is systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), where an array of autoantibodies is associated with a multisystem involvement. In contrast, in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) the immune attack is more restricted and the synovium is the major target. Autoreactive B and T cells alone are not sufœcient to cause autoimmune disease; they need to have access to their target site, initiate an inammatory response through recruitment of other immune cells, soluble mediators like cytokines and chemokines, to cause uncontrolled inammation and tissue damage resulting in disease. In this chapter we take two prototype diseases, one that is mainly initiated by the presence of autoantibodies and another mediated by T cells, and discuss the inammatory cascades involved.
