How to focus on autoantigen-specific lymphocytes: a review on diagnosis and treatment of Sjogren's syndrome.

Sjogren's syndrome (SS) is an autoimmune epithelitis characterized by focal lymphocytic infiltration against self-antigens leading to progressive glandular dysfunction, which can develop to multisystem manifestation. The classification criteria for SS emphasizes glandular lymphocyte infiltrates and anti-SSA/SSB seropositivity, which is usually manifested in advanced patients. Therapeutically, apart from symptomatic treatment, treatment of SS is based on glucocorticoids and conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs with global immunosuppression, but the efficacy of biologic or targeted synthetic therapies is still sparse. Currently, emerging studies focus on autoantigen-specific immunotherapies to treat autoimmune disorders by directly eliminating autoreactive cell subsets and inducing tolerance by increasing the autoreactive regulatory lymphocytes. Herein, we summarize the current state of research on the autoantigen-specific approaches for detecting autoreactive lymphocytes and outline the current autoantigen-specific immunotherapies in other autoimmune disorders and their attempts in treatment of SS. Last, we discuss the potential value of focusing on autoantigen-specific lymphocytes in the early diagnosis, monitoring, and targeted treatment of SS. Potential strategies for targeting autoreactive lymphocytes need to be confirmed in SS. © The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Society for Leukocyte Biology. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.

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Bingxia Ming, Ling Li, Shaozhe Cai, Ziwei Hu, Rongfen Gao, Hisanori Umehara, Jixin Zhong, Fang Zheng, Lingli Dong. How to focus on autoantigen-specific lymphocytes: a review on diagnosis and treatment of Sjogren's syndrome. Journal of leukocyte biology. 2025 Feb 13;117(2)

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PMID: 39953919

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