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Clinical and Developmental Immunology
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 606195, 12 pages
doi:10.1155/2012/606195
Clinical and Pathological Roles of Ro/SSA Autoantibody System
1Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, 3-9 Fukuura, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-0004, Japan
2Program in Genomics of Differentiation, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
Received 4 October 2012; Accepted 19 November 2012
Academic Editor: Dimitrios P. Bogdanos
Copyright © 2012 Ryusuke Yoshimi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Anti-Ro/SSA antibodies are among the most frequently detected autoantibodies against extractable nuclear antigens and have been associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and Sjögren's syndrome (SS). Although the presence of these autoantibodies is one of the criteria for the diagnosis and classification of SS, they are also sometimes seen in other systemic autoimmune diseases. In the last few decades, the knowledge of the prevalence of anti-Ro/SSA antibodies in various autoimmune diseases and symptoms has been expanded, and the clinical importance of these antibodies is increasing. Nonetheless, the pathological role of the antibodies is still poorly understood. In this paper, we summarize the milestones of the anti-Ro/SSA autoantibody system and provide new insights into the association between the autoantibodies and the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases.