title: The initiation and early development of autoimmune diseases.
abstract: Our understanding of autoimmunity has changed considerably over the past years as a consequence of the demonstration that self-reactive B cells and T cells are not necessarily deleted from the immunological vocabulary. The critical event in initiating (or avoiding) autoimmune responses is presentation to T cells of the self-peptide-MHC antigen complex. Based on the premise that quantitative aspects are of paramount importance, we suggest that T-cell activity, MHC expression, and self-peptide binding determine the initiation of autoimmune responses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University, Canberra.
authors.forename: G L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Ada
authors.forename: N R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Rose
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008285:Major Histocompatibility Complex