Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:P11021 (BiP)
 2,049 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis has been hampered by the lack of a truly disease-specific serologic marker. Thus, despite its moderate specificity rheumatoid factor (RF) is still the only established marker antibody for RA and among the diagnostic criteria of the American College of Rheumatology the only serologic one. However, in recent years, several newly characterized autoantibodies have been described that may have the potential to become diagnostic indicators for RA. In particular, antibodies to citrullinated targets (anti-keratin or anti-filaggrin antibodies, respectively, antibodies to synthetic citrullinated peptides) appear to be highly specific for RA. Other potentially useful antibodies include anti-RA33 autoantibodies and antibodies to the stress protein BiP which seem to have higher specificity for RA than RF. Apart from being promising diagnostic markers these autoantibodies or the underlying cellular autoimmune reactions, respectively, may also play a role in the pathogenesis of RA.
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PMID:[Novel autoantibodies for the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis]. 1249 Nov 30

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a major systemic autoimmune disease. A plethora of putative autoantigens has been described by the reactivity of antibodies present in the sera of patients. Despite this there is little evidence implicating most of them in its pathogenesis. Autoantigens fall into two major groups: first, those that are associated with the joint, such as collagen type II, human chondrocyte glycoprotein 39, and proteoglycans, for which a pathogenic role is easily understood; and second, those proteins not associated with the joint. Of these there are three groups: (1) highly conserved foreign antigens with human homologues, such as heat shock proteins (HSPs), in which the initiating antigenic stimulus may be through infection; (2) post-translationally altered proteins, such as citrullinated filaggrin, to which autoantibodies show high specificity but low sensitivity for RA and immunoglobulin G; and (3) ubiquitous proteins, such as glucose-6-phosphate isomerase, p205, and HSPs secreted during stress, such as BiP. The mechanisms by which such ubiquitous antigens cause pathology predominantly in the joints are difficult to understand. Autoantibodies, such as rheumatoid factors, that form immune complexes resulting in activation of phagocytic cells or the complement system, may cause joint pathology by deposition in the joints. Such an explanation, however, is not available for all of these autoantigens. It is possible that pathology may be the outcome of disturbed immunoregulation.
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PMID:Autoantigens and immune pathways in rheumatoid arthritis. 1267 29