Scotet E, David-Ameline J, Peyrat M A, Moreau-Aubry A, Pinczon D, Lim A, Even J, Semana G, Berthelot J M, Breathnach R, Bonneville M, Houssaint E
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U211, Institut de Biologie, Nantes, France.
J Exp Med. 1996 Nov 1;184(5):1791-800. doi: 10.1084/jem.184.5.1791.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a multistep disorder associated with autoimmune features of yet unknown etiology. Implication of viruses such as Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in rheumatoid arthritis pathogenesis has been suspected on the basis of several indirect observations, but thus far, a direct link between EBV and rheumatoid arthritis has not been provided. Here we show that a large fraction of T cells infiltrating affected joints from a patient with chronic rheumatoid arthritis recognizes two EBV transactivators (BZLF1 and BMLF1) in a major histocompatibility complex-restricted fashion. Responses to these EBV antigens by synovial lymphocytes from several other chronic rheumatoid arthritis patients were readily detectable. Thus these results suggest a direct contribution of EBV to chronic rheumatoid arthritis pathogenesis. They also demonstrate for the first time the occurrence of T cell responses against EBV transactivating factors, which might be central in the control of virus reactivation.
类风湿性关节炎是一种多步骤疾病，与病因不明的自身免疫特征相关。基于一些间接观察结果，人们怀疑诸如爱泼斯坦-巴尔病毒（EBV）等病毒在类风湿性关节炎发病机制中起作用，但迄今为止，尚未证实EBV与类风湿性关节炎之间存在直接联系。在此我们表明，一名慢性类风湿性关节炎患者受影响关节中浸润的大部分T细胞以主要组织相容性复合体限制的方式识别两种EBV反式激活因子（BZLF1和BMLF1）。其他几名慢性类风湿性关节炎患者的滑膜淋巴细胞对这些EBV抗原的反应很容易检测到。因此，这些结果表明EBV对慢性类风湿性关节炎发病机制有直接影响。它们还首次证明了针对EBV反式激活因子的T细胞反应的存在，这可能在控制病毒再激活中起核心作用。
