Molecular biology and immunology for clinicians 23: autoimmunity and the superfamilies of tumor necrosis factor and tumor necrosis factor receptor.
The parsimony of nature can be stated as "if its not broke don't fix it, just tweak it and reuse it again and again." Nature recycles: once a motif is demonstrably useful it shows up again, often in unexpected places. Tumor necrosis factor and its receptor(s) are examples of this. At least 20 molecules have now been identified as being 25% homologous or more identical with tumor necrosis factor and being involved in a variety of immune and nonimmune functions. Members of the receptor superfamily have shared structural motifs and trigger shared intracellular signaling pathways. Rather than having been implicated in arcane and rare syndromes, some of these activities are pivotal in immune function and, when perturbed, some predispose to known immunodeficiency and autoimmune disease. Not surprisingly, some of these are becoming targets for immunomodulation. New members of these 2 superfamilies are currently being described and the newcomers and the "original stock" will show up in the clinic before you know it! Part of the confusion has always been that each laboratory describing a new biologic principle names the mediating compound. Thus, multiple labs, multiple names for the same protein (recall Ro/SS-A, La/SS-B). Thus, special attention is paid below to acronyms and their synonyms.
Sigal
Leonard H
LH
Division of Rheumatology and Connective Tissue Research, Department of Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. sigallh@umdnj.edu