Basic elements of murine systemic lupus erythematosus.

Knowledge about murine lupus and by analogy human lupus, has increased much in recent decades. Relatively complete descriptions of the development of this disease, particularly at the cellular, humoral, and in some cases the molecular level, are now available, but why the disease occurs is still unknown. Technologies designed to describe cellular and humoral immunologic events in progress and ways to artificially induce such abnormalities are described. However, until recently techniques capable of defining the genes determining immunologic function or revealing abnormalities of these genes which might predispose to diseases such as lupus were unknown. Since the disease itself can apparently be caused in genetically dissimilar individuals by different pathogenic mechanisms, and since most of the individual autoimmune traits appear to be multigenic, the lupus prone genetic backgrounds will be complex. The pertinent genetic elements in disease prone animals are examined and compared.