The etiopathogenesis of Sjögren's syndrome

Antigen-driven clonal proliferation of B cells within the target tissue of an autoimmune disease. The salivary glands of patients with Sjögren's syndrome.

“…Intra-and intermolecular epitope spreading would then lead to production of other autoantibodies, e.g., from Ro to La and rheumatoid factor. There is some, albeit limited, evidence that a virus such as Epstein Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, herpes virus, or human T cell leukemia virus-1 may be the initiating etiological agent (44).…”

T cell clones from a Sjögren’s syndrome salivary gland biopsy produce high levels of IL-10

“…We could hypothesize that this subset could be caused by a particular virus infection. The negative serology for HTLV-1, HIV and hepatitis C excludes three viruses which have been linked to SS (reviewed in [31] ), though another lymphotropic virus which can cause a CD4 lymphopenia could well be a candidate.…”

Lipoxin A4 inhibits immune cell binding to salivary epithelium and vascular endothelium

“…B lymphocytes make up ϳ20% of the infiltrating cell population and monocytes/macrophages are also present (50). Infiltrating lymphocytes produce proinflammatory cytokines that have been shown to play a role in the pathogenesis of SS (10,21,35,71,73). During the evolution of the inflammatory response in SS, an array of adhesive interactions occurs between immune cells and target tissues (2,22,75,89).…”