Expression Of Human Tim-1 And Tim-3 In PBMC From Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients And Cloning Of Human Tim-3

Tim family members are type I membrane glycoproteins expressed on T cells and containing common structural motifs, namely Ig V domain, highly glycosylated mucin domain and cytoplasmic domain. Tim family consists of 3 genes on syntenic human chromosome 5q33.2 with no other intervening genes. The human Tim family members are Tim-1, Tim-3 and Tim-4. All of them characterized thus far appear to have a role in the regulation of Th1 and Th2 differentiation and T cell mediated immune responses. Tim-1 is expressed on all activated T cells and at a higher level on Th2 than on Thl cells.Tim-3 protein is specifically expressed on Thl cells and negatively regulates Thl responses. It has reported that the expression of Tim family members in some autoimmune disease patients is different from that of controls and some SNPs of Tims have relationship with autoimmune diseases, both of which indicates that they are related to autoimmune diseases.Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is characterized by B-cell hyperactivity, autoantibody production, and immune complex deposition in vital organs. SLE has been extensively studied and a large number of abnormalities in both cellular and humoral immunity have been described.