Cellular auto-immune disease occurs because the host antigen recognition systems fail, and the immune system believes, by mistake, that a host antigen is foreign. As a result, the CD8+
T cells treat the host cell presenting that antigen as infected, and go
on to destroy all host cells (or in the case of transplant rejection,
transplant organ) that express that antigen.
Some of this section is a simplification. Many auto-immune diseases are more complex. A well-known example is rheumatoid arthritis,
where both antibodies and immune cells are known to play a role in the
pathology. Generally the immunology of most auto-immune diseases is not
well understood.
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