Rethinking mechanisms of autoimmune pathogenesis

Why exactly some individuals develop autoimmune disorders remains unclear. The broadly accepted paradigm is that genetic susceptibility results in some break in immunological tolerance, may enhance the availability of autoantigens, and may enhance inflammatory responses. Some environmental insults that occur on this background of susceptibility may then contribute to autoimmunity. In this review we discuss some aspects related to inhibitory signaling and rare genetic variants, as well as additional factors that might contribute to autoimmunity including the possible role of clonal somatic mutations, the role of epigenetic events and the contribution of the intestinal microbiome. Genetic susceptibility alleles generally contribute to the loss of immunological tolerance, the increased availability of autoantigens, or an increase in inflammation. Apart from common genetic variants, rare loss-of-function genetic variants may also contribute to the pathogenesis of autoimmunity. Studies of an inhibitory signaling pathway in B cells helped identify a negative regulatory enzyme called sialic acid acetyl esterase. The study of rare genetic variants of this enzyme provides an illustrative example showing the importance of detailed functional analyses of variant alleles and the need to exclude functionally normal common or rare genetic variants from analysis. It has also become clear that pathways that are functionally impacted by either common or rare defective variants can also be more significantly compromised by gene expression changes that may result from epigenetic alterations. Another important and evolving area that has been discussed relates to the role of the intestinal microbiome in influencing helper T cell polarization and the development of autoimmunity.