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NEUROLOGY 1982;32:12
© 1982 American Academy of Neurology

Neuromuscular transmission in neonatal mice injected with serum globulin of myasthenia gravis patients

Murali K. D. Pagala, Ph.D., Shinya Tada, M.D., Tatsuju Namba, M.D., Ph.D. and David Grob, M.D.

Department of Medicine, Maimonides Medical Center, and State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY.

Neuromuscular transmission was studied in neonatal mice following injection with serum globulin of patients with myasthenia gravis (MG). Compared to controls, these mice showed significant reduction in successive muscle action potentials evoked by repetitive nerve stimulation, amplitude of miniature endplate potentials, and postjunctional sensitivity to acetylcholine. There was no change in evoked isometric tension, quantal content of endplate potentials, or input resistance of the endplate membrane. These results confirm earlier reports of neuromuscular block in animals following injection of globulin of myasthenic patients, and demonstrate that decrease in amplitude of evoked potentials and of miniature endplate potentials is due to reduction in sensitivity to acetylcholine rather than in input resistance of the postsynaptic membrane. These findings are compatible with a postsynaptic defect in MG caused by a humorally mediated autoimmune mechanism.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Pagala, Neuromuscular Disease Division. Maimonides Medical Center, 4802 Tenth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11219.

Presented in part at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation, New York, December 1977; and the fourth International Congress of Neuromuscular Diseases, Montreal. September 1978.

Accepted for publication July 21, 1981.






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