CART Cells and Other Cell Therapies (ie MSC, Tregs) in Autoimmune Diseases

Abstract

Auto-immune diseases (AD) are heterogeneous conditions, characterized by polyclonal activation of the immune system with a defect of B or T lymphocyte selection and altered lymphocytic reactions to auto-antigens components (Burnet 1959a, b), although it is rare to identify a single antigenic epitope. The native immune system and its tissue environment play an important role to determine if exposure to a given antigen will induce an immune response or tolerance or anergy. The role of the genes coding for the major histocompatibility system molecules, but also of many other genes, is important in the regulation of the immune response, although this does not explain all the observed phenomena during loss of tolerance (Matzinger 1994; Rioux and Abbas 2005).