Many autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Sjögren's syndrome (SS) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) occur much more frequently in women than in men. There is much evidence that oestrogen is the major cause of this gender difference. Interestingly, oestrogen relieves the symptoms of RA and SS but it exacerbates SLE. This contradictory effect of oestrogen on autoimmune diseases is not well understood. Most of the effects of oestrogen are mediated by two receptors: oestrogen receptor alpha and beta (ERalpha and ERbeta). To determine whether these contradictory effects of oestrogen relate to the involvement of distinct effects of the two ERs, we investigated expression of ERalpha and ERbeta in human secondary lymphoid tissues. We observed that, in tonsils, ERbeta is expressed in lymphocytes of germinal centres (GC) and the follicular mantle zone as well as in granulocytes, while ERalpha is expressed only in activated germinal centres but not in the follicular zone. ERbeta is the predominant ER in human leucocytes from peripheral blood, spleen and in leucocytes infiltrating cancers in both males and females. In addition, in different human lymphoma cell lines including Hodgkin lymphoma, Burkitt lymphoma, and multiple myeloma, ERbeta is abundant while ERalpha is not detectable. Our results indicate that ERbeta is the predominant type of ER in mature lymphocytes. We suggest that ERalpha and ERbeta have distinct roles in secondary lymphoid tissues and that further studies with ERbeta-specific agonists will help to elucidate the role of ERbeta in these tissues.

Pulmonary amyloidosis is a rare disease, characterized by extracellular deposition of fibrillary protein in the lungs. Primary pulmonary amyloidosis is rare disease, that present focal or systemic characteristics. The secondary system form is generally related to neoplastic, infectious, or chronic inflammatory processes, chronic kidney disease, syphilis, leprosy, inflammatory bowel disease, osteomyelitis, parasitic infections, rheumatoid arthritis. We present the case of patient with diffuse pulmonary amyloidosis Key words: pulmonary amyloidosis, pathology myloidosis is not a single disease but a term for diseases that share a common feature: the extracellular deposition of pathologic insoluble fibrillar proteins in organs and tissues. In the mid-19 th century, Virchow adopted the botanical term "amyloid", meaning starch or cellulose, to describe abnormal extracellular material seen in the liver at autopsy [36]. Subsequently, amyloid was found to stain with Congo red, appearing red microscopically in normal light but apple green when viewed in polarized light [1,8]. In major development was the recognition that amyloid fibrils in primary amyloidosis are fragments of immunoglobin light chains [15]. Subsequently, it was determined that different proteins made up the amyloid fibrils in reactive [secondary] amyloidosis and familial amyloidosis [2], opening the way to specific therapies designed to target the source of fibrilprecursor production [9]. Amyloidosis is characterized by deposition of abnormal protein, fibrillary proteins material in extracellular tissue, in a variety of organs [9, 13, 31, 32]. It is a generic term for a heterogeneous group of diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and type II diabetes mellitus [28]. It can be hereditary or acquired potentially fatal or a merely accidental finding [13]. In a simplified way, the disease can be subdivided into localized or systemic form. It can also be classified as primary or secondary [23]. The respiratory system is frequently involved in patients with amyloidosis [6, 9, 17, 21, 35]. Amyloidosis of the respiratory tract was first described in 1877 by Lesser [31].