Autoimmune PAP is an autoimmune lung disease that is caused by autoantibodies directed against granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF).
Healthy human alveolar macrophages (AMs) constitutively express activin A, but AMs of patients with pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) are deficient in activin A. PAP is an autoimmune lung disease characterized by neutralizing autoantibodies to Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor (GM-CSF).