Plataformas electroquímicas para el diseño de biosensores de afinidad aplicados a la detección de biomarcadores de enfermedades autoinmunes

Abstract

Autoimmunity is the self-destructive effect or response of the immune system in which different levels of manifestation with a variety of nuances can be found. Autoimmune diseases emerge when the immune system does not distinguish between foreign and its own elements and produces antibodies that attack body cells. This condition can be initiated by an infection, but the immune activation persists in the absence of the antigen. There are at least eighty different autoimmune diseases which can be subtle in onset and present a variety of clinical manifestations. This situation makes hard to establish a proper diagnosis which depends upon careful clinical evaluation. Usually, autoimmune diseases are classified into two types according to the number of organs damaged. Firstly, organ-specific autoimmune diseases which can be endocrine, dermatological or hematological, are characterized by the involvement of a particular tissue. Furthermore, systemic autoimmune diseases occur when antibodies attack non-specific antigens in more than one organ. In this work, we have focused on diseases of the second type, mainly in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and multiple sclerosis (MS)...