T cell - B cell interactions

This session had as its central theme the analysis of peptide epitopes and their relationship with lupus pathogenesis. New information on the role of peptides opens up the possibility of treatments based on inducing immunological tolerance although care needs to be taken since it is difficult to predict flare or remission of disease after exposure to critical antigenic peptides. The provenance of these peptides may be self or foreign antigens, or autoantibody idiotypes.