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The Science Behind Autoimmune Disorders Disproportionately Affecting Women

Venus Williams

What's one thing that Selena Gomez, Venus Williams, and Gigi Hadid all have in common?....Well, besides the fact that they are all celebrities.

Selena Gomez


Well, if you didn’t know,  they all have a type of autoimmune disorder. Selena Gomez was diagnosed with Lupus in 2013 and publicly spoke about it for the first time in  2015.


Gigi Hadid

Venus Williams was diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome and has been a strong voice in raising awareness for this disorder, and Gigi Hadid was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease.


These are just a few examples of public figures with autoimmune disorders and these disorders affect millions of people worldwide. Autoimmune diseases are diseases where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy body tissue. There are 80 known autoimmune diseases and these diseases can affect the body in different ways. They disproportionately affect women with women accounting for about 80% of all cases.

For many years it has been a mystery as to what causes this disparity and scientists have made progress over the years.


In a collaborative study led by researchers at Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University in the United States, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland titled, 

“ Xist ribonucleoproteins promote female sex-biased autoimmunity”(Dou et al., 2024), shows a possible explanation for this disparity is due to X chromosome inactivation.


Male and female chromosomes

Males have one X and one Y chromosome and females have two X chromosomes. The second X chromosome in females undergoes an inactivation process so that males and females end up having an equal X chromosome load. X chromosome inactivation occurs by a molecule called Xist recruiting other proteins to form a protein complex. This inactivation is a physical process involving Xist wrapping around the X chromosome to be inactivated, recruits the other proteins to form the complex and inactivates the chromosome.


Dou et al. show that it can be the Xist complex itself that can trigger an immune response. This means that the process of X chromosome inactivation which occurs in females could be the reason as to why autoimmune disorders disproportionately affect women. 



With recent investments in women’s health from the government as well as private companies, it is exciting to see the impact these investments are having in the space. One of the things I love the most about science is that when we understand how something works, we can think of how to design therapeutics to target that process. These advancements in the lab lead to innovations that will ultimately improve overall health and well being. 


 

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