title: Enhanced proliferative response of myasthenic thymus cells in mixed lymphocyte reaction.
abstract: 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.
authors: Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
authors: N
authors: N
authors: Fujii
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Itoyama
authors: I
authors: I
authors: Goto
mesh_terms: 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*
chemical_list: D010835:Phytohemagglutinins; C100156:leukoagglutinins, plants