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| Autoimmunity is the failure of an organism to recognise its
own constituent parts (down to the sub-molecular levels) as
"self", which results in an immune response against its own
cells and tissues. Any disease that results from such an
aberrant immune response is termed an autoimmune disease.
Prominent examples include diabetes mellitus type 1 (IDDM),
systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Sjögren's syndrome,
Hashimoto's thyroiditis, Graves' disease, and rheumatoid
arthritis (RA). See List of autoimmune diseases. The
misconception that an individual's immune system is totally
incapable of recognising "self" antigens is not new. Paul
Ehrlich, at the beginning of the twentieth century, proposed the
concept of horror autotoxicus, wherein a 'normal' body does not
mount an immune response against its own tissues. Any autoimmune
response thus was perceived to be abnormal and postulated to be
c