1Ph. D. Scholar, Department of Veterinary Public Health & Epidemiology, College of Veterinary and Animal Science, GBPUAT, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India
2Assistant Professor, Animal Biotechnology, Department of Veterinary Physiology and Biochemistry, College of Veterinary & Animal Science, GBPUAT, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India
3Professor and Head, Department of Veterinary Pathology, Ex-WHO Advisor, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India
*Corresponding author email id: aman.kamboj.biotech@gmail.com
Online published on 30 November, 2019.
The immune system is evolved to protect organisms from a variety of pathogens which include bacteria, virus, fungi or parasites. It involves a complex interaction of both the components of adaptive immune system, that is, humoral and cellular immunity along with the innate immune system. An excellent property of adaptive immune response is to differentiate self from non-self or altered-self. When this ability fails the immune-mediated diseases occurs causing harm to the own tissues of host called Autoimmunity or Autoimmune diseases. The autoimmunity is characterized by the presence of auto reactive cells like T-lymphocytes and/or cellular products like autoantibodies against the organism's own antigens called autoantigens. There are different mechanisms involved in this process of autoimmunity like genetic or acquired defects in immune tolerance, altered immune regulatory pathways, molecular mimicry to pathogens and impaired cell death or apoptotic process. The objective of present review is to provide an overview of selected autoimmune diseases of various animals including poultry with special reference to the mechanism of autoimmunity.
Immune system, Adaptive immunity, Autoimmunity, Autoantigens, Autoantibodies, Immune tolerance, Anti-nuclear antibody
