AUTHOR=Pieterse Elmar , van der Vlag Johan 

TITLE=Breaking Immunological Tolerance in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology

VOLUME=Volume 5 - 2014

YEAR=2014

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2014.00164

DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2014.00164

ISSN=1664-3224

ABSTRACT=Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a fairly heterogeneous autoimmune disease with a highly complex and not completely known etiology that mainly affects women in the childbearing age. SLE is a prototype type III hypersensitivity reaction in which immune complex depositions cause inflammation and tissue damage in multiple organs. Two distinct cell death pathways, apoptosis and NETosis, are central and crucial processes in the pathogenesis of SLE. There is growing evidence that histone modifications induced by these cell death pathways exert a key role in the induction of autoimmunity. In the current review, we discuss how abnormalities in apoptosis, NETosis and histone modifications may lead to a break of immunological tolerance in SLE.