REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Disorders : Autoimmune Disorders
This article is part of the Research TopicGenetics, Microbiomes and Environmental Factors in Autoimmunity: From Bench to BedsideView all 3 articles
When viral infections meet the anti-MDA5 antibody-positive dermatomyositis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, People's Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing, China
- 2Department of Rheumatology, People's Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing, China
- 3State Key Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang, China
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Anti-melanoma differentiation-related gene 5 (MDA5) antibody-positive dermatomyositis (anti-MDA5+ DM) is recognized as a distinct subtype of dermatomyositis, characterized by its frequent association with interstitial lung disease (ILD), particularly rapidly progressive ILD (RP-ILD), which is associated with a poor prognosis and high mortality. MDA5 functions as a cytoplasmic sensor for viral double-stranded RNA. The expression level of anti-MDA5 antibodies is positively correlated with disease severity. Notably, anti-MDA5 antibodies have been detected in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. While the mechanisms underlying the generation of anti-MDA5 antibodies and their pathogenic role remain incompletely understood, accumulating data support the hypothesis that viral infections may trigger the production of these antibodies. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of the interplay between anti-MDA5 antibodies and viral infections in patients with anti-MDA5+ dermatomyositis (DM), with a focus on the potential mechanisms by which viral infections induce autoantibody formation.
Keywords: anti-MDA5 antibody, Dermatomyositis, interstitiallung disease, Pathogenesis, SARS-CoV-2, viral infections
Received: 18 Jun 2025; Accepted: 16 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Zhao, Li, Tan, Tian and Fei. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Huabin Tian
Xie Fei
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