Table 1.

Summary of autoimmune diseases for which a viral cause is proposed. Listed are the respective targeted tissues or host cells, the pathology-mediating autoreactive immune cells and the proposed pathomechanisms.

Autoimmune Disease	Virus	Target Cells or Self-Peptides	Immune Cells or Cytokines	Pathomechanism	Ref.
Rheumatoid Arthritis	HTLV	Synovial cells	IL1, IL6, TNF-α	Autonomous proliferation of synovial cells and inflammation	[163,164,165]
	EBV	Collagen and keratin	Autoreactive T cells	Molecular mimicry	[166,167,168]
Multiple Sclerosis	Herpes simplex virus (HSV1, HSV2)	Peripheral sensory nerves, sensory ganglia in CNS	Cytotoxic T lymphocyte, IL-6	Molecular mimicry of HSV-1 glycoprotein gB epitope and a brain-specific factor	[169,170]
	Epstein–Barr Virus (EBV)	CNS, myelin basic protein (MBP), anoctamin 2, glial cell adhesion molecule (GlialCAM)	CD4+ and CD8+ T cells	Antibodies against EBV antigens viral capsid antigen (VCA), Epstein–Barr nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1), and early antigen (EA), Epstein–Barr latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1), molecular mimicry	[127,171,172,173,174,175,176]
	Human Herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6)	Oligodendrocyte, MBP	T cells	Molecular mimicry of virus peptide U24 with MBP	[177,178,179]
	Varicella-Zoster Virus (VZV)	Ganglia in CNS, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs)	CD4+ and CD8+ T cells	-	[180]
	Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs)	CNS in white matter lesion, (PBMCs)	TNF-α	Induction of free radicals, ER stress	[169,170,181,182]
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus	EBV	B- and epithelial cells; autoantibodies: SmB and Ro60	EBV-specific T cells	Molecular mimicry	[183,184,185]
Diabetes Mellitus Type 1	Coxsackie B4	GAD65 in the beta-cells of pancreas	IFN-γ/type-1-IFN, IL-4	Molecular mimicry	[186]
	Rubella	GAD65/67 of the pancreatic islets	CD4+ and CD8+ T cells	Molecular mimicry	[187,188]
	Rotavirus	Tyrosine phosphatase IA-2	Type I IFN	Molecular mimicry and Bystander activation	[189,190]
	Cytomegalovirus	GAD65	GAD65 specific T-cells	Molecular mimicry	[191]