Autoimmunity against laminins

• Laminins are constituents of basement membranes with essential developmental role.
• Laminins are involved in genetic and acquired bullous dermatoses, and collagenoses.
• Pathogenic autoimmunity to laminins is supported by animal models of human diseases.
• Further studies should focus on characterization of relevant laminin epitopes.
• Future therapies might rely on laminin-specific peptide-based immunoadsorption.

Laminins are ubiquitous constituents of the basement membranes with major architectural and functional role as supported by the fact that absence or mutations of laminins lead to either lethal or severely impairing phenotypes. Besides genetic defects, laminins are involved in a wide range of human diseases including cancer, infections, and inflammatory diseases, as well as autoimmune disorders. A growing body of evidence implicates several laminin chains as autoantigens in blistering skin diseases, collagenoses, vasculitis, or post-infectious autoimmunity. The current paper reviews the existing knowledge on autoimmunity against laminins referring to both experimental and clinical data, and on therapeutic implications of anti-laminin antibodies. Further investigation of relevant laminin epitopes in pathogenic autoimmunity would facilitate the development of appropriate diagnostic tools for thorough characterization of patients' antibody specificities and should decisively contribute to designing more specific therapeutic interventions.