title: An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for antibodies against saline-soluble muscle components in myasthenia gravis.
abstract: An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) system has been developed for measuring antibodies against rat skeletal muscle components solubilized with phosphate-buffered saline. With this assay, 53.8% (50/93) of sera from patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) was positive (the values over the mean plus 3 SD of 256 healthy individuals were considered significant). No sera from patients with neurological disorders other than MG gave positive values (0%; 0/60). No correlation between titers of antibody against the muscle components and those of anti-acetylcholine receptor antibody (r = 0.01) was found. These results indicate that our ELISA system is useful for diagnosing myasthenia gravis.
mesh_terms: D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000032:analysis*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D006801:Humans; D007140:Immunoglobulin Fab Fragments / Q000276:immunology; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000276:immunology; D009132:Muscles / Q000276:immunology*; D009157:Myasthenia Gravis / Q000276:immunology*; D011950:Receptors, Cholinergic / Q000276:immunology; D012965:Sodium Chloride / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D001323:Autoantibodies; D007140:Immunoglobulin Fab Fragments; D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D011950:Receptors, Cholinergic; D012965:Sodium Chloride