Bone and Joint Institute
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2020
Journal
Journal of Translational Autoimmunity
Volume
3
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.1016/j.jtauto.2020.100053
Abstract
© 2020 The Author(s) Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is more common and severe in women compared to men. Both women and men with RA express autoantibodies to post-translationally modified antigens, including citrullinated and homocitrullinated proteins or peptides. These autoantibodies are strongly linked with the HLA-DR4 gene. The objective of this study was to determine sex differences in immune responses to homocitrullinated antigens. We used a humanized animal model of RA, DR4-transgenic mice and immunized them with a homocitrullinated peptide called HomoCitJED. Immune responses in these mice were measured for splenocyte proliferation by tritiated thymidine incorporation, serum autoantibody production by ELISA and cytokine levels by multiplex. We found that T cell and antibody responses to homocitrullinated antigens were similar in male and female mice. However, we found sex differences in serum cytokine profiles with female mice having higher ratio of IL-1α to IL-5, suggesting imbalances in immune regulation. This is the first study to report that immune responses to homocitrullinated antigens can be differentiated by sex.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Notes
©2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
The article was originally published as:
Cairns, E., Saunders, S., Bell, D. A., Blackler, G., Lac, P., & Barra, L. (2020). The effect of sex on immune responses to a homocitrullinated peptide in the DR4-transgenic mouse model of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Journal of Translational Autoimmunity, 3, 100053. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtauto.2020.100053