O papel dos estrogênios na resposta imune: uma revisão sobre os principais mecanismos envolvidos nas manifestações de lúpus eritematoso sistêmico e artrite reumatoide.

Abstract

Estrogens are female traditional hormones that control a variety of physiologicals functions in the human body, stimulating the growth and differentiation of cells, which characterizes females and results in the existing differentiation between the sexes, they are also related in the manifestations of disease. Thus, this study is aimed to review how estrogens act on the different immune system cells, controlling their physiological functioning and how this may affect manifestations of autoimmune diseases (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Rheumatoid Arthritis) in patients. A narrative review of national and international literature, including experimental and reviewed articles published in different journals ranging from 2000 to 2015 were analysed. We reviewed the differences in male and female immune system, and described the mechanisms by which estrogens act on different cells of the immune system (dendritic cells, macrophages, natural killer cells and different lymphocyte subpopulations) to explain many of these differences. Different correlations between these hormones and physiological manifestations of various diseases considering their effect as a function of concentration were observed when available. In this way, this detailed knowledge of the physiological functioning of estrogen hormones on immune cells is essential for a better understanding of the immune system and consequent understanding of autoimmune origin of diseases is central to the establishment of possible measures for control and prevention.