RIBONUCLEOPROTEIN COMPLEXES AS AUTOANTIGENS

Many intracellular proteins and nucleic acids, that are involved in im portant biosynthetic pathways, are targeted by autoantibodies occurrin g spontaneously in the sera of patients with systemic autoimmune disea ses. Frequently, the autoantigens are assembled into multicomponent co mplexes containing both nucleic acid(s) and proteins. Recently, progre ss has been made in the study of autoantigenic ribonucleoprotein compl exes, the most important of which are spliceosomal ribonucleoproteins, nucleolar ribonucleoproteins, Ro/La ribonucleoproteins and complexes of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase and tRNA. in addition to new structural a nd functional information, important results have been obtained on epi tope spreading, as well as on a potential role for apoptosis during th e development of an autoimmune response against these complexes.