Cell Mol Life Sci 2022 May 20;79(6):307. Epub 2022 May 20.
Department of Diagnostic & Biomedical Sciences, School of Dentistry, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, 77054, USA.
Sjögren's syndrome (SjS) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by immune cell infiltration of the exocrine glands, mainly the salivary and lacrimal glands. Despite recent advances in the clinical and mechanistic characterization of the disease, its etiology remains largely unknown. Here, we report that mice with a deficiency for either Atg7 or Atg3, which are enzymes involved in the ubiquitin modification pathway, in the salivary glands exhibit a SjS-like phenotype, characterized by immune cell infiltration with autoantibody detection, acinar cell death, and dry mouth. Read More