In article <7j9h3i$kup$1 at panix3.panix.com>,
Ian A. York <iayork at panix.com> wrote:
>In article <FCsGK5.E76 at midway.uchicago.edu>,
>Kenneth Frauwirth <kfrauwir at midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>Although I agree with your conclusion, I don't think these are good
>arguments in its favour.
>>You make two general points. Let me take them in reverse. First, I don't
>think that stable transfections or grafts would count as "self" in
>Forsdyke's argument. It would have to be proteins appropriate for that
>individual, and in neither case is that true. So their rejection is not
>applicable to his model.
If one is trying to argue that individual APC, rather than external
aspects of the immune system, are determining self vs. non-self, then
what is appropriate for the *organism* is not what is important, but
rather what is appropriate for the *cell*. Thus, the strong rejection of
tissue grafts (especially those with minor mismatches, such as H-Y) poses
a real problem. Further, stable transfection is an in vitro model of
transgenesis - mice with tissue-specific expression of "non-self"
transgenes do not develop autoimmune diseases, but instead often become
systemically tolerant to the transgenic antigen (the immune system has
thus treated a peripheral "non-appropriate" protein as self).
Ken Frauwirth
--
Ken Frauwirth (MiSTie #33025) kfrauwir at midway.uchicago.edu
Gwen Knapp Center for Lupus and Immunology Research
University of Chicago
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~frauwirt
