© 2002 by Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases
LEADER
Sjögren's syndrome
Microchimerism in Sjögren's syndrome
1 Internal Medicine, University of L'Aquila, School of Medicine, Italy
2 Internal Medicine, University of Florence, School of Medicine, Rheumatology, Italy
3 University of Pisa, School of Medicine, Italy
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor R Giacomelli, Department of Internal Medicine, University of L'Aquila, School of Medicine, via Vetoio, 67100 L'Aquila, Italy;
roberto.giacomelli@cc.univaq.it
The evidence of microchimerism both lends support to and raises doubts about its specific role in SS
Keywords: Sjögren's syndrome; microchimerism
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The advent of molecular biology techniques has led to the recognition that cells travel in both directions between mother and fetus. Fetal stem cells traverse the placenta and may persist in the maternal circulation for decades. Similarly, maternal cells may pass into the fetal circulation and persist into adult life.1 The persistence of genetically different cells in the same person has been called chimerism. When low levels of donor cells are present the term microchimerism is applied.
Clinical and immunological features of different autoimmune diseases strikingly resemble chronic graft versus host disease, which occurs in some patients after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, a known condition of chimerism.2 The recent finding that increased amounts of fetal cells, which persisted after pregnancy, can be detected in autoimmune diseases3–8 has raised the possibility that an allogeneic process rather than an autologous breakdown in self tolerance may be involved in the pathogenesis
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