Postgenomic Bioinformatic Analysis of Nucleic Acid Sequences Expressed in the Salivary Gland Epithelial Cells of Primary Sjögren's Syndrome Patients in Search of Microorganisms and Endogenous Retroviruses.

Several previous studies from our laboratory have indicated that the salivary gland epithelia of primary Sjögren's syndrome (SS) patients are not only the target of autoimmune immune responses, but also key instigators of the chronic salivary gland inflammatory infiltrates of patients. In particular, the comparative analysis of salivary gland tissue specimens and of in-vitro cultured non-neoplastic salivary gland epithelial cell lines (SGEC, of ductal type) from SS-patients and non-SS disease-controls, have unequivocally highlighted the presence of intrinsic activation in the ductal epithelia of SS-patients and of aberrant expression of inflammagenic molecules thereof, that correlate with the severity of local histopathologic changes, as well as of systemic manifestations of the disease. In the same context, we have recently shown that the ductal epithelia of SS-patients manifest cell-autonomous activation of the AIM2 inflammasome owing to the presence of aberrant cytoplasmic accumulations of damaged DNA.

Cell-autonomous epithelial activation of AIM2 (absent in melanoma-2) inflammasome by cytoplasmic DNA accumulations in primary Sjögren's syndrome.

Primary Sjögren's syndrome (SS) is characterized by chronic periductal inflammatory infiltrates in the salivary glands. Several previous studies have indicated that the ductal epithelia of SS patients play a pro-inflammatory role and manifest an intrinsically activated status, as demonstrated in cultured non-neoplastic ductal salivary gland epithelial cell (SGEC) lines. Herein, we investigated the activation of inflammasomes in the salivary epithelia of SS patients and non-SS controls, using salivary biopsy tissues and SGEC lines.