The immune system is built to hit invaders and spare the body. That safeguard is self-tolerance. In autoimmune disease it fails, and the attack turns inward. First set the dials that decide what escapes. Then pick a disease and run it for ten years.
The screening bench60 new lymphocytes
Green cells are safe. Red cells react against the body. Watch which ones get through.
Self-toleranceset the dials and see what escapes
9
2
An outside trigger
Self-reactive cells loose
0
Deleted in the thymus
0
Two gates, not one.Central tolerance deletes self-reactive cells in the thymus and bone marrow. Peripheral tolerance shuts down the ones that slip out. Autoimmunity needs both gates to leak.
Pick a diseaseyear 0
Every autoimmune disease is one self-antigen the body stopped tolerating.