Enhanced proliferative response of myasthenic thymus cells in mixed lymphocyte reaction.
To determine the functional diversity of thymic lymphoid cells in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG), we evaluated mixed lymphocyte reactions (MLR) using thymus cells in 7 MG patients and 8 controls. In the MLR, we used thymus cells as responder cells and mitomycin C-treated peripheral non-T cells as stimulator cells. In an autologous MLR test, a low proliferative response was observed in both the MG patients and controls. In an allogeneic MLR test, in which thymus cells were co-cultured with allogeneic non-T cells, the thymus cells from MG patients showed an increased proliferative response to stimulator cells, whether they were from MG patients or the controls. However, thymus cells from the controls showed a low proliferative response to any allogeneic stimulator cells. The enhanced allo-reactivity of thymus cells from MG patients thus suggests that there is an increase in the number of functionally mature T lineage cells in the MG thymus.
Fujii
N
N
Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Itoyama
Y
Y
Goto
I
I
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002455:Cell Division; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007959:Lymphocyte Culture Test, Mixed; D008297:Male; D009157:Myasthenia Gravis / Q000473:pathology*; D010835:Phytohemagglutinins; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000473:pathology; D013950:Thymus Gland / Q000473:pathology*
D010835:Phytohemagglutinins; C100156:leukoagglutinins, plants