Specific immune cells in autoimmune diseases
The immunology research team of ISAR Bioscience has developed methods to follow specific immune cells that are pivotal drivers of autoimmune disease.
A team of scientists led by Dr Tim Ammon at ISAR Bioscience has detected and characterized relevant auto-antigen-directed and specifically regulated immune cells in the blood of patients with two of the most frequent autoimmune diseases, Graves´ disease and orbitopathy (GD/GO) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Auto-antigens are structures such as proteins in patients which are being attacked by their own immune system. To learn more about disease drivers and markers, the scientists determined specific types of immune cells: auto-antigen-specific B and T lymphocytes, and additionally, (follicular) T helper cells and dendritic cells (DC). The team established novel, robust methods to detect these rare cells, which are pivotal drivers of autoimmune diseases. This allows to better measure early disease, disease progression and the effects of therapeutic interventions.
The investigation of autoimmune patient blood cells by ISAR Bioscience is based on a long-term cooperation with Prof. George Kahaly and his team at the Molecular Thyroid Laboratory at University Medicine Mainz, Germany, and a network of clinicians around Prof. Martin Ungerer, CSO at ISAR Bioscience. They have built up biobanks of autoimmune patient blood and tissue samples which have been well characterized in terms of clinical history, clinical symptoms and investigation, imaging, tissue findings, biomarkers, and other serum values, and have been followed over time.
The investigation of these immune cells also opens up possibilities to measure interactions of various cell (sub-)populations such as dendritic cells and T lymphocytes during and after co-culture ex vivo, and to simulate processes in germinal immune centers in GD/GO and rheumatoid arthritis patients.
The results have been published in two open access journals:
Ammon T, Zeiträg J, Mayr V, Benedicic M, Holthoff HP, Ungerer M (2025) Citrullinated autoantigen-specific T and B lymphocytes in rheumatoid arthritis: Focus on follicular T helper cells and expansion by coculture. Am College Rheumatol Open 1:e11785
LINK: https://acrjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acr2.11785
Zeiträg J, Benedicic M, Wolf J, Ammon T, Mayr V, Holthoff HP, Kahaly GJ, Ungerer M (2025) Inflammatory and tolerogenic dendritic cells and T lymphocytes in Graves’ thyroidal and orbital disease. BBA Molec Basis Dis 1871: 167747
LINK: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925443925000924?via%3Dihub
