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. 1984 Oct;58(1):97–106.

Cell types required for anti-acetylcholine receptor antibody synthesis by cultured thymocytes and blood lymphocytes in myasthenia gravis.

H N Willcox, J Newsom-Davis, L R Calder
PMCID: PMC1576978  PMID: 6236921

Abstract

In most young myasthenia gravis patients, the thymic medulla contains germinal centres. Thymocytes from these cases spontaneously synthesize anti-acetylcholine receptor autoantibody (anti-AChR) in culture; after irradiation they may also selectively stimulate anti-AChR antibody production by autologous blood lymphocytes. By depleting cortical or mature thymic T cells by complement killing, we now show that neither of these responses depends on thymic T cells, unlike the total IgG response to pokeweed mitogen which is T cell-dependent and shows T/B cell synergy. The results suggest that much of the spontaneous anti-AChR production is by autonomous thymic plasma cells, which may be HLA-DR-. The ability to stimulate autologous blood lymphocytes does not require viable HLA-DR+ thymic cells but appears to depend on rare antigen presenting cells from the germinal centres. In preliminary experiments, blood T cells were apparently also necessary.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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