Related Experiment Videos
Viruses as triggers of autoimmunity: facts and fantasies
1Department of Neuropharmacology, CVN-9, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 N Torrey Pines Rd, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. lwhitton@scripps.edu
Current Opinion in Microbiology
|August 25, 1999
Abstract:
Autoimmunity has been proposed as the cause of several human chronic inflammatory diseases, and recent animal studies show that viruses can induce autoimmune disease. These studies demonstrate how viruses might misdirect the immune system, and here we discuss critically the evidence that similar phenomena may lead to human disease.