Go to JCI Insight
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • By specialty
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Gastroenterology
    • Immunology
    • Metabolism
    • Nephrology
    • Neuroscience
    • Oncology
    • Pulmonology
    • Vascular biology
    • All ...
  • Videos
    • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
    • Video Abstracts
  • Reviews
    • View all reviews ...
    • Complement Biology and Therapeutics (May 2025)
    • Evolving insights into MASLD and MASH pathogenesis and treatment (Apr 2025)
    • Microbiome in Health and Disease (Feb 2025)
    • Substance Use Disorders (Oct 2024)
    • Clonal Hematopoiesis (Oct 2024)
    • Sex Differences in Medicine (Sep 2024)
    • Vascular Malformations (Apr 2024)
    • View all review series ...
  • Viewpoint
  • Collections
    • In-Press Preview
    • Clinical Research and Public Health
    • Research Letters
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Editorials
    • Commentaries
    • Editor's notes
    • Reviews
    • Viewpoints
    • 100th anniversary
    • Top read articles

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Specialties
  • Reviews
  • Review series
  • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
  • Video Abstracts
  • In-Press Preview
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Research Letters
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Editorials
  • Commentaries
  • Editor's notes
  • Reviews
  • Viewpoints
  • 100th anniversary
  • Top read articles
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact

Submit a comment

Impaired thymic tolerance to α-myosin directs autoimmunity to the heart in mice and humans
HuiJuan Lv, … , Bruno Kyewski, Myra A. Lipes
HuiJuan Lv, … , Bruno Kyewski, Myra A. Lipes
Published March 23, 2011
Citation Information: J Clin Invest. 2011;121(4):1561-1573. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI44583.
View: Text | PDF
Research Article Article has an altmetric score of 7

Impaired thymic tolerance to α-myosin directs autoimmunity to the heart in mice and humans

  • Text
  • PDF
Abstract

Autoimmunity has long been linked to myocarditis and its sequela, dilated cardiomyopathy, the leading causes of heart failure in young patients. However, the underlying mechanisms are poorly defined, with most clinical investigations focused on humoral autoimmunity as the target for intervention. Here, we show that the α-isoform of myosin heavy chain (α-MyHC, which is encoded by the gene Myh6) is the pathogenic autoantigen for CD4+ T cells in a spontaneous mouse model of myocarditis. Further, we found that Myh6 transcripts were absent in mouse medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs) and peripheral lymphoid stromal cells, which have been implicated in mediating central and peripheral T cell tolerance, respectively. Transgenic expression of α-MyHC in thymic epithelium conferred tolerance to cardiac myosin and prevented myocarditis, demonstrating that α-MyHC is a primary autoantigen in this disease process. Remarkably, we found that humans also lacked α-MyHC in mTECs and had high frequencies of α-MyHC–specific T cells in peripheral blood, with markedly augmented T cell responses to α-MyHC in patients with myocarditis. Since α-MyHC constitutes a small fraction of MyHC in human heart, these findings challenge the longstanding notion that autoimmune targeting of MyHC is due to its cardiac abundance and instead suggest that it is targeted as a result of impaired T cell tolerance mechanisms. These results thus support a role for T cell–specific therapies for myocarditis.

Authors

HuiJuan Lv, Evis Havari, Sheena Pinto, Raju V.S.R.K. Gottumukkala, Lizbeth Cornivelli, Khadir Raddassi, Takashi Matsui, Anthony Rosenzweig, Roderick T. Bronson, Ross Smith, Anne L. Fletcher, Shannon J. Turley, Kai Wucherpfennig, Bruno Kyewski, Myra A. Lipes

×

Guidelines

The Editorial Board will only consider comments that are deemed relevant and of interest to readers. The Journal will not post data that have not been subjected to peer review; or a comment that is essentially a reiteration of another comment.

  • Comments appear on the Journal’s website and are linked from the original article’s web page.
  • Authors are notified by email if their comments are posted.
  • The Journal reserves the right to edit comments for length and clarity.
  • No appeals will be considered.
  • Comments are not indexed in PubMed.

Specific requirements

  • Maximum length, 400 words
  • Entered as plain text or HTML
  • Author’s name and email address, to be posted with the comment
  • Declaration of all potential conflicts of interest (even if these are not ultimately posted); see the Journal’s conflict-of-interest policy
  • Comments may not include figures
This field is required
This field is required
This field is required
This field is required
This field is required
This field is required
Rich Text Editor, eletter_body
Editor toolbarsClipboard/Undo CutKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+X CopyKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+C PasteKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+V Paste as plain textKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V Paste from Word UndoKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z RedoKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+YEditing Find Replace Select All Spell Check As You TypeLinks LinkKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+K Unlink AnchorForms Form Checkbox Radio Button Text Field Textarea Selection Field Button Image Button Hidden FieldTools Maximize Show BlocksDocument Source Save New Page Preview Print TemplatesBasic Styles BoldKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+B ItalicKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+I UnderlineKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+U Strikethrough Subscript Superscript Copy FormattingKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+C Remove FormatParagraph Insert/Remove Numbered List Insert/Remove Bulleted List Decrease Indent Increase Indent Block Quote Create Div Container Align Left Center Align Right Justify Text direction from left to right Text direction from right to left Set languageStylesStylesStylesFormatFormatFontFontSizeSizeColors Text Color Background Color
Press ALT 0 for help
◢Elements path 

Copyright © 2025 American Society for Clinical Investigation
ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)

Sign up for email alerts

Picked up by 1 news outlets
127 readers on Mendeley
See more details