Autoimmune murine thyroiditis. Relationship of humoral and cellular immunity to thyroiditis in high and low responder mice

Abstract

Good responder (C57/Br/cd) and poor responder (C57BL/10) mice were immunized with mouse thyroid extract in Freund's complete adjuvant. The good responder mice first showed antibody to thyroglobulin on the seventh day while the poor responder animals had slightly lower titers and antibody did not appear until day 12. The first signs of thyroid infiltration appeared on day 4 in the responder strain, and severe lesions were seen between the third and fifth week. In contrast, the poor responder mice showed almost no evidence of infiltration. The macrophage disappearance reaction, a measure of cell-mediated immunity, was similar in the responder and nonresponder strains.

Syngeneic sensitization of mouse lymphocytes on monolayers of thyroid epithelial cells. III. Induction of thyroiditis by thyroid‐sensitized T lymphoblasts

“…The role of T cells in thyroiditis was indicated previously by the existence of delayed hypersensitivity reactions [20], and the prevention of the disease by neonatal thymectomy [21]. Their level of intervention is speculative but may involve regulatory or effector cell functions.…”

“…These two manifestations of the autoimmune response, antibody levels against Tg and the severity of the thyroiditis, are not invariably correlated. For example, it was shown in mice that, depending either upon the adjuvant used to induce thyroiditis [20] or upon the strain of mouse [23], antibody production against Tg was noted but no lesions were observed.…”

Newer Insights into the Pathogenesis of Experimental Autoimmune Thyroiditis

“…This stage mimics a typical human clinical presentation because autoimmune thyroiditis is rarely diagnosed until much of the gland exhibits severe pathophysiology. This stage, in the mTg/CFA model encompassing Day 12 to the time of sacrifice (typically Days 21-28) is marked by high levels of thyroid pathology [11,18], high titers of anti-mTg IgG [52,58], lower levels of splenocyte proliferation in response to mTg than were seen earlier in the disease course [ll], and lower levels of I F N r production in vitro in response to mTg but higher levels of ILlO and TNFa [our unpublished results]. Additionally, infiltrating lymphocytes express ICAM-1, a4 integrin, and LFA-1 [20,59], while thyrocytes expressed ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 [59].…”

Microbial Adjuvant and Autoimmunity

“…Many reports have suggested that the formation of thyroiditis has an intimate correlation to development of delayed hypersensitivity to thyroid antigens rather than to production of circulating antibodies (1,6,17,19,21). Recently, however, Clagett et al (3) have suggested that circulating antibodies play an important role in production of thyroid lesions in mice injected with heterologous thyroid antigen.…”