Mouse Model Provides Clues to Autoimmune Disease

Utilizing a mouse model to study autoimmune disease, researchers have identified a gene that encodes a protein that serves as a receptor for histamine, a signaling molecule involved in immune responses. The study was published in the July 26, 2002, issue of Science.

The Bphs gene controls Bordetella pertussis toxin (PTX)-induced vasoactive amine sensitization elicited by histamine (VAASH) and has an established role in autoimmunity. The authors, from the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, USA) and the University of Vermont (Burlington, USA), found that congenic mapping linked Bphs to the histamine H1 receptor gene (Hrh1/H1R) and that H1R differed at three amino acid residues in VAASH-susceptible and -resistant mice. Hrh1 mice were protected from VAASH, which could be restored by genetic complementation with a susceptible Bphs/Hrh1 allele.

"Utilizing a mouse model to study autoimmune disease will have a definite impact on the understanding of human autoimmune disease as genes that cause disease in mice have been found to be concordant with autoimmune causing genes in humans,” said Dr. Kenneth S. K. Tung, professor of pathology at the University of Virginia. "The next progression of this study will be to understand the role of the histamine receptor in autoimmune disease and, more importantly, to determine whether a parallel set of events occurs in human autoimmune disease.”





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