title: Immune aging and autoimmunity.
abstract: Age is an important risk for autoimmunity, and many autoimmune diseases preferentially occur in the second half of adulthood when immune competence has declined and thymic T cell generation has ceased. Many tolerance checkpoints have to fail for an autoimmune disease to develop, and several of those are susceptible to the immune aging process. Homeostatic T cell proliferation which is mainly responsible for T cell replenishment during adulthood can lead to the selection of T cells with increased affinity to self- or neoantigens and enhanced growth and survival properties. These cells can acquire a memory-like phenotype, in particular under lymphopenic conditions. Accumulation of end-differentiated effector T cells, either specific for self-antigen or for latent viruses, have a low activation threshold due to the expression of signaling and regulatory molecules and generate an inflammatory environment with their ability to be cytotoxic and to produce excessive amounts of cytokines and thereby inducing or amplifying autoimmune responses.
authors.affiliation: Division of Immunology and Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, 269 Campus Drive West, Stanford, CA, 94305-5166, USA. jgoronzy@stanford.edu
authors.forename: Jörg J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Goronzy
authors.forename: Cornelia M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Weyand
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000375:Aging / Q000276:immunology*; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000276:immunology; D015551:Autoimmunity; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D006801:Humans; D007108:Immune Tolerance; D018448:Models, Immunological; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology