AUTOIMMUNE ORCHITIS AND AUTOIMMUNE OOPHORITIS

LIVIA LUSTIG; VANESA A.GUAZZONE; KENNETH S.K.TUNG

The Autoimmune Disesases

Academic Press / Elsevier

Año: 2019; p. 1235 - 1246

Experimental autoimmune orchitis (EAO) and experimental autoimmune ovarian disease (AOD) research has provided new approaches to investigate human gonadal autoimmunity and chronic inflammation of the gonads associated with subfertility and infertility. In this chapter we have described in detail experimental autoimmune diseases that occur in animals with global perturbation of immune regulation, including d3tx, Treg depletion from the DEREG mice, vasectomy with Treg depletion, AIRE deficient mice, hypothalamo-pituitary deficiency, and transgenic HLA B27/β2m expression. It is surprising that in all instances, the testis and the ovary are major targets; and Treg and AIRE are the major perturbed regulatory elements. We propose that the gonads, and their unique functions, demand exceptional protection from autoimmune destruction, and this requires the thymic Treg. We also hypothesize that Treg protection may extend to the other events in normal reproduction in order to assure successful procreation. They include: gamete production, gamete transfer, embryo implantation, and maintenance of the pregnancy itself (Trowsdale and Betz, 2006; Mold et al., 2008; Guerin et al., 2009; Kahn and Baltimore, 2010; Samstein et al., 2012; Jiang et al., 2014).