Lupus, multiple sclerosis, and type-1 diabetes are among more than a score of diseases in which the immune system attacks the body it was designed to defend. But just why the immune system begins its misdirected assault has remained a mystery.
Now, researchers at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) have shown that bacterial communities that form biofilms play a role in the development of the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus -- a discovery that may provide important clues about several autoimmune ailments.
A team led by TUSM researchers Çagla Tükel, PhD, and Stefania Gallucci, MD, show how bacterial biofilms found in the gut can provoke the onset of lupus in lupus-prone mice and is published in the journal Immunity.
"This work stresses the importance of considering infections as a possible trigger for lupus," Dr. Gallucci said. "Very little was known about how biofilms interact with the immune system because most of the research has been looking at how biofilms protect bacteria, how they make bacteria resistant to antimicrobials such as antibiotics, but almost nothing was known about what biofilms do to the immune response," she said ...
