Autoimmunity, particularly in the form of arthritis, provides pharmacists with a major market for non-steroidal antiinflammatory agents and other drugs, but it also constitutes some important mechanisms for drug allergy reactions. Autoimmune disease results when the immune system destroys a significant amount of an organ's function.
Autoimmunity can involve autoantibodies or CMI against self antigens, or both.
In some cases the disease is initiated by the development of an immune response against a self antigen, but in many cases the development of autoimmunity is a result of something else which initiates the disease. An increasing number of diseases are becoming recognized as having an autoimmune component, usually as part of the pathology. The initiating agent is usually something else, such as a virus or a chemical insult. Autoimmunity plays an important role in research on some diseases by providing animal models of various diseases. It now recognizes a different antigenic determinant which sometimes will be found on the person's tissues.