Recently, we found that reduced expression of Fli-1 protein had a profound effect on disease development in the NZM2410 mice that are a strain derived by intercrossing NZW × NZB F1 mice. Fli-1+/− NZM2410 mice, like Fli-1+/− MRL/lpr mice, had significantly lower serum

autoantibody titres and decreased proteiuniria compared to WT NZM2410 mice. MK-1775 molecular weight Fli-1+/− NZM2410 mice survived significantly longer compared to WT NZM2410 mice (unpublished data). However, Green et al.[25] demonstrated recently that non-haematopoietic factors also contribute to lupus disease development in the α-mannosidase II-deficient mice model. We believe that our data also support an effect of non-haematopoeitic cells on MRL/lpr mice disease development based on the decreased disease in the Fli-1+/− MRL/lpr mice receiving BM from WT MRL/lpr mice. Using mice with specific cell Fli-1 disruption will provide further insight into how Fli-1 affects lupus disease development. We are now generating conditional Fli-1 knock-out MRL/lpr mice for future study. In summary, our data demonstrate that the expression of Fli-1

in BM derived haematopoietic cells has a significant effect on autoimmune disease development in MRL/lpr mice and that decreased expression of Fli-1 in non-haematopoietic cell lineages also probably contributes to the improvement of autoimmune disease development in MRL/lpr mice, These data also indicate that the expression of a single gene in different cell types can have separate but synergistic effects on disease development. This study Florfenicol was supported by National Institutes EMD 1214063 manufacturer of Health grants (AR054546 to X. K. Z.) and the Medical Research Service, Department of Veterans Affairs (to X. Z. and G. G.). None. “
“Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease that primarily affects the lacrimal and salivary glands causing dry eyes and mouth. Antibodies to Ro60 are frequently observed in patients with SS; however, the role of these antibodies in SS initiation and progression remains

unclear. The sequence Ro60 273-289 (Ro274) is a known B cell epitope of Ro60and antibodies to this epitope have been observed in a subset of SS patients and in animals immunized with Ro60 protein. Animals immunized with Ro274 linear peptide develop a Sjögren’s-like illness. We hypothesized that passive transfer of anti-Ro274-specific IgG would induce a Sjögren’s-like phenotype. To evaluate this hypothesis, we adoptively transferred affinity-purified Ro274 antibodies into naïve BALB/c animals then evaluated salivary gland histology, function and IgG localization four days post-transfer. At this timepoint, there was no demonstrable mononuclear cell infiltration and salivary glands were histologically normal, but we observed a functional deficit in stimulated salivary flow of animals receiving Ro274 antibodies compared to animals receiving control IgG.