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Response to 'Thyrocytes — not innocent bystanders in autoimmune disease'

Nature Immunology volume 2, page 183 (2001)Cite this article

Giordano et al. propose that thyrocytes play a crucial role in the regulation of the autoimmune response during GD. According to them, Fas is weakly expressed in GD thyrocytes, whereas FasL is responsible for a specific deletion of infiltrating TH1 cells and maintains a TH2 phenotype in the lymphocytic infiltrate.

Data published so far reports unambiguous Fas expression in GD thyrocytes1,2,3,4,5, although there is one exception to this. In this one report the authors may have used an insensitive detection technique because they found “weak staining” for Fas in HT thyrocytes6, which was definitely lower than the “large amounts of Fas” found by Giordano et al.7. In addition, where the largest number of cases were analyzed, Fas expression was higher in GD, compared to HT, thyrocytes2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgical, Anatomical and Oncological Sciences, Human Anatomy Section, University of Palermo, Palermo, 90127, Italy

    Giorgio Stassi

  2. Laboratory of Hematology and Oncology, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, 00161, Italy

    Ruggero De Maria

Authors
  1. Giorgio Stassi
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  2. Ruggero De Maria
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Stassi, G., De Maria, R. Response to 'Thyrocytes — not innocent bystanders in autoimmune disease'. Nat Immunol 2, 183 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/85226

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