Abstract: Autoimmune diseases arise from an inappropriate immune response of the body against the autoantigen.The pathogenesis of autoimmune disease is complicated and not well understood. However, the imbalance of T helper cell is acknowledged to be a key factor. Galectin-1, an endogenous glycan-binding protein, is known to play an important role in the T-cell survival, signaling, cytokine secretion. Recently, lots of studies demonstrate that galectin-1 also involved in the pathogenesis of autoimmune disease. Treatment with recombinant galectin-1 showed to relieve the severity and progression of some autoimmune disease animal models, which suggests that galectin-1 could be a promising therapeutic target of auto immune disease.

Key words: galectin-1, autoimmunity, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus , diabetes