Inflammatory Myopathies and Autoimmune Gluten-related Disorders: A Scoping Review of Pathophysiological...

Anecdotal reports describe patients with concurrent idiopathic inflammatory myopathy (IIM) and celiac disease (CeD) in whom the introduction of a gluten-free diet led to dramatic improvement of myositis. We first systematically reviewed all peer-reviewed publications on concomitant IIM and duodenal biopsy-verified CeD. The collected evidence was suggestive of associations between myositis disease activity and gluten exposure in some patients with IIM-CeD.

To investigate possible explanations for the observations, an exploratory review of basic pathophysiological relationships between IIM and gluten-related disorders was performed using a combined strategy of systematic and non-systematic literature searches and forward and backward citation tracking.

The investigations revealed close pathophysiological associations between IIM and the autoimmune gluten-related disorders CeD, dermatitis herpetiformis, and gluten ataxia. Common traits include shared genetic predisposition through HLA-DQ2.5/-DQ8, disease activity-associated autoantibodies, histopathological parallels with inflammatory cell infiltrates, and similarly distributed structural homologous transglutaminases (TGs). HLA-DQ2.5-restricted gluten-specific CD4+ T cells of a rare, uniform phenotype are reported in CeD and connective tissue disease. Expanded T-cell clones with identical phenotypes and CDR3β motifs indicate the presence of a continuous, antigen-driven T-cell response.

The investigations revealed that the main components involved in the adaptive immune response in the CeD gut may be present in HLA-DQ2.5+/-DQ8+ IIM muscle. The collected evidence supports the notion that in some genetically predisposed patients with IIM, gluten may act as an exogenous antigen driving myositis. Further Research/Clinical Implications: To test the above hypothesis, clinical trials combined with immunological studies are needed. Meanwhile, the inclusion of HLA-DQ typing may be justified, and subsequent small-intestinal biopsies in HLA-DQ2.5/8+ individuals with IIM.