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Thymic B-cell activation in myasthenia gravis

From the Allergy and Immunology Section of the Department of Medicine (Drs. Levinson, Zweiman, Dziarski, and Moskovitz), and the Department of Neurology (Drs. Zweiman, Lisak, and Moskovitz), and the Henry M. Watts, Jr., Neuromuscular Disease Research Center of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia.

We studied secretion of immunoglobulin (Ig) by freshly isolated and pokeweed mitogen (PWM)- stimulated thymus cells and blood mononuclear cells in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) and control subjects undergoing elective cardiac surgery. We used a protein A reverse hemolytic plaque assay to enumerate cells secreting IgG, IgM, and IgA (IgSC), and an ELISA assay for measuring IgG secreted into culture supernatants. We found that freshly isolated suspensions of MG thymus cells, compared with control thymus cells, contained increased numbers of cells that spontaneously secreted immunoglobulin. Thymus mononuclear cells from control as well as MG patients appeared capable of B-cell differentiation responses when stimulated by PWM. PWM-induced responses were greater in thymic than in autologous blood mononuclear cells in some MG patients and controls, although B cells were much less frequent in suspensions of thymic cells than blood cells. Thus, the thymus provides a favorable milieu for differentiation of its few B cells. In MG, the thymus may be a site of accentuated in vivo B-cell activation, as evidenced by increased numbers of resident IgSC.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Levinson, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 515 Johnson Pavilion, 36th Street and Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Supported by grants from the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the Veterans Administration, and NIH grant no. CA-15236.

Accepted for publication July 6, 1983.

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