Conditional Upregulation of IFN-α Alone Is Sufficient to Induce Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

The cause of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is unknown. IFN-α has been suggested as a causative agent of SLE; however, it was not proven, and to what extent and how IFN-α contributes to the disease is unknown. We studied the contribution of IFN-α to SLE by generating inducible IFN-α transgenic mice and directly show that conditional upregulation of IFN-α alone induces a typical manifestation of SLE in the mice not prone to autoimmunity, such as serum immune complex, autoantibody against dsDNA (anti-dsDNA Ab), and the organ manifestations classical to SLE, such as immune complex-deposited glomerulonephritis, classical splenic onion-skin lesion, alopecia, epidermal liquefaction, and positive lupus band test of the skin.

Heat shock protein 90 maintains the tumour-like character of rheumatoid synovial cells by stabilizing integrin-linked kinase, extracellular signal-regulated kinase and protein kinase B.

Objective: To clarify the contribution of heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) to the pathogenesis of RA, we studied the effects of geldanamycin (GA), an inhibitor of HSP90, on excessive cellular extension and resistance to apoptosis induction of rheumatoid synovial cells.

Methods: Expression of integrin-α5β1 and integrin-linked kinase (ILK) in synovial cells was determined by western blot. The peripheral localization of ILK, reorganization of F-actin, complex formation of ILK with particularly interesting new cysteine-histidine protein (PINCH) and α-parvin, and activation of Rac/cdc42 in synovial cells were examined by using immunohistochemistry and immunoprecipitation.