Molecular targets in pernicious anaemia.

Autoimmune gastritis, leading to pernicious anaemia, is an organ-specific autoimmune disease characterized by chronic atrophic gastritis and circulating gastric parietal cell autoantibodies. The parietal cell autoantigens have recently been identified as the alpha and beta subunit of the gastric proton pump (H+, K+ ATPase). Here Paul Gleeson and Ban-Hock Toh discuss how the identification of these gastric parietal cell autoantigens and the development of a mouse model of autoimmune gastritis have paved the way for an understanding of the pathogenesis of the gastric lesion.