Arthritis provoked by linked T and B cell recognition of a glycolytic enzyme

The hallmark of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is specific destruction of the sy novial joints. In a mouse line that spontaneously develops a disorder with many of the features of human RA, disease is initiated by T cell recognitio n of a ubiquitously expressed self-antigen; once initiated, pathology is dr iven almost entirely by immunoglobulins. In this study, the target of both the initiating T cells and pathogenic immunoglobulins was identified as glu cose-6-phosphate isomerase, a glycolytic enzyme, Thus, some forms of RA or related arthritides may develop by a mechanism fundamentally different from the currently popular paradigm of a joint-specific T cell response.