How does an infection lead to autoimmunity...along came the concept of epitope spread whereby damage resulting from viral infection lead to the the development of autoimmunity. This is a nice concept and could explain relapsing disease or how MS could develop and there is no question in my mind that immune reactivity to self targets increase as time goes by...but here is the problem when it is taken to extreme. There are some parts of the science fraternity who believe that relapses are the result of epitope spreading from one epitope to another in an orderly fashion.
About two minutes of thought should tell you that this is probably a rubbish, concept especially as there are hundreds of lesional events (10 or more per relapse) and the important fact that no-one bar a few labs can replicate this ordered response. This new paper is yet another example how one dubious idea can take many many publications to try and break the idea.
How would relapses in T cell receptor transgenic mice occur when they only react to one specificity. Need we say more?
MD2 will point out that we showed that this concept was on shady ground about 8-10 years ago.