title: [Autoimmune disease predisposition: Aire « protects » men].
abstract: Autoimmune diseases are a group of about 80 different diseases affecting 5-8% of the population. They are due to a deregulation of the immune system that attacks specific molecules and/or cells in the body. The thymus is the school of T cells that must be able to react to foreign molecules penetrating into the body. This education process is mediated by interactions between T cells and thymic epithelial cells (TEC) that express specific proteins of the peripheral tissues (TSA, "tissue-specific antigen"). This complex mechanism is called central tolerance. Most of the autoimmune diseases display a common feature : women are more susceptible to these diseases than men. Since the thymus is the main organ of central tolerance, we conducted a comparative study of thymic transcriptome of women and men. Our data revealed sex-associated differences in the expression of TSAs that are controlled by the autoimmune regulator (AIRE), a key factor in central tolerance. By studying human and murine cell models, we analyzed the relationship between gender, hormones and AIRE. Our work shows that AIRE is less expressed in women than in men after puberty. Furthermore, we show that estrogen induces decreased thymic AIRE expression by epigenetic modifications through increased number of methylation sites within the AIRE promoter. Consequently, these data suggest that from puberty, women have a reduced effectiveness of central tolerance process, leading to increased number of autoreactive lymphocytes, and as a result, increased susceptibility to autoimmune diseases. Together, these data may question the impact of exposure to "estrogen-like" molecules on the growing incidence of autoimmune diseases.
authors.affiliation: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Université Paris 6, Inserm U974, Institut de Myologie, 105, boulevard de l'Hôpital, hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, 75013 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dragin
authors.affiliation: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Université Paris 6, Inserm U974, Institut de Myologie, 105, boulevard de l'Hôpital, hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, 75013 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Rozen
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Le Panse
authors.affiliation: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Université Paris 6, Inserm U974, Institut de Myologie, 105, boulevard de l'Hôpital, hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, 75013 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Berrih-Aknin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics; D004198:Disease Susceptibility; D005260:Female; D012739:Gonadal Steroid Hormones / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007108:Immune Tolerance / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D015995:Prevalence; D012737:Sex Factors; D013950:Thymus Gland / Q000502:physiology; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D000096927:AIRE Protein
chemical_list: D012739:Gonadal Steroid Hormones; D014157:Transcription Factors; D000096927:AIRE Protein