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Retroviruses and autoimmune diseases
1AIDS Research Center, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan. matano@nih.go.jp
Japanese Journal of Infectious Diseases
|October 3, 1999
Abstract:
The possible involvement of retroviruses in the development of autoimmune diseases has long been discussed. Exogenous retroviral infections and aberrant endogenous retroviral expressions can possibly induce immune dysfunction directly or indirectly. In addition to observations of autoimmune disease-like features in animal models, indirect evidences implicating retroviruses in human autoimmune diseases have been shown in a number of reports. However, direct evidence for the etiologic role of retroviruses in human autoimmune diseases has not yet been obtained.