Survivin and autoimmunity; the ins and outs

Abstract

Autoimmunity is a status that immune mechanisms react against self-structure. The immune mechanisms, including cellular and molecular elements have been developed to immune body against foreign invades. Multiple factors such as genetic and epigenetic background, hormonal status, microbiome, and other factors can cause launching the autoreactive responses, in which the immune tolerance breaks and immune mechanisms are against self-antigens. Apoptosis is one of the important mechanisms in maintaining the tolerance and eliminating the autoreactive lymphocyte clones. Due to survivin roles in apoptosis and proliferation, numerous researches have been paying attention to survivin expression and function in autoreactive lymphocytes and tissue cells, playing important roles in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. New line of evidence has been supporting the role of survivin dysfunction or aberrant expression in deriving autoreactive lymphocytes or some important immune tissues, which may underpin the autoimmune conditions such as Lichen planus (LP), Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Myasthenia gravis (MG), Multiple sclerosis (MS), Systemic sclerosis (SSc), Psoriasis, and Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Hence, the purpose of the current paper was to review the survivin role in the etiology and pathogenesis of abovementioned autoimmune diseases.

Keywords: Apoptosis; Autoimmune diseases; Survivin.