I. Introduction THE remarkable female predominance of such diverse autoimmune diseases
as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Hashimoto's thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, and …

Rheumatoid arthritis affects about 1 percent of the US population and can cause irreversible
joint deformities and functional impairment. Although the cause of this autoimmune disease …

Background Maintenance therapy, often with azathioprine or mycophenolate mofetil, is
required to consolidate remission and prevent relapse after the initial control of lupus nephritis. …

Vascular permeability factor (VPF, also known as vascular endothelial growth factor or VEGF),
is a potent microvascular permeability enhancing cytokine and a selective mitogen for …

… *Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Nancy J. Olsen, MD, T-3219
Medical Center North, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37232-2681. …

Recent studies have demonstrated that thymus-derived naturally occurring CD4 + Foxp3 +
regulatory T cells (Tregs) in human and mouse may be unstable and dysfunctional in the …

The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of lupus-related autoimmunity in
a community-based cohort of over 3000 subjects, using a rheumatology registry as a …

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease that is characterized
by defective immune tolerance combined with immune cell hyperactivity resulting in the …

We have studied the consequences of introducing human recombinant transforming growth
factor beta 1 (hrTGF-beta 1) into synovial tissue of the rat, to begin to better understand the …

Humoral immune responses are sexually dimorphic. Female individuals generally exhibit
more-robust antibody responses to vaccines and, in the clinical setting as well as in …