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. 1987 Jan;126(1):194–198.

Thymomatous epithelial cells and skeletal muscle share a common epitope defined by a monoclonal antibody.

M Dardenne, W Savino, J F Bach
PMCID: PMC1899544  PMID: 2433946

Abstract

Monoclonal antibodies have been raised against thymomatous epithelial cells with the use of fragments of a human thymoma as source of antigen. These monoclonals, which do not react with cultured epithelial cells or sections from normal thymus (except for some cells of Hassall's corpuscles), label a large number of cells in thymoma sections. In addition, they recognize cross-striations from skeletal muscle cells. Immunoblotting studies reveal that the proteins recognized on thymoma and muscle are in the same molecular weight range, suggesting that these proteins, which share a common epitope, are identical. These findings indicate that the production of circulating anti-cross-striational autoantibodies observed in most patients with thymoma could derive from immunization against a protein abnormally expressed by neoplastic epithelial cells.

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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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