ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 11 (UPI) -- University of Michigan scientists say a new discovery could help scientists understand what causes autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.
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In a study published online in Nature, researchers from the university's medical school found that the protein cryopyrin responds to invading bacteria by triggering the activation of a powerful inflammatory molecule called IL-1beta, which signals the immune system to attack pathogens and induces fever to protect the body against infection.
Found in the fluid inside cells, cryopyrin is a member of the NOD-LRR family of proteins, which protect cells against microbial infection. Defective cryopyrin is associated with increased susceptibility to infection.
Small mutations in CIAS1 --the human gene for cryopyrin-- are known to cause three rare autoinflammatory diseases: familial cold autoinflammatory syndrome, Muckle-Wells syndrome and neonatal-onset multiple-system inflammatory disease.
The scientists found that activated cryopyrin triggers an enzyme called caspase-1, which splits the immature form of IL-1beta to produce the active form of the molecule. Once IL-1beta is activated, it can be secreted out of the cell where it binds to the IL-1beta receptor on other cells to trigger an immune response.
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