Lymphocyte Sensitisation in Myasthenia Gravis: Function of the Adult Thymus Gland

Immunological relationship between acetylcholine receptor and thymus: a possible significance in myasthenia gravis.

“…It is possible that the improvement seen in some myasthenic patients following thymectomy depends on the general immunosuppression caused by this treatment. Indeed, some authors found a profound depression of lymphocyte reactivity and diminution of T cells in blood of myasthenics after thymectomy (11,(28)(29)(30), as would be expected taking into account the known immunosuppressive effect of thymectomy (31).…”

“…For example, an antigenic correlation has been demonstrated between human brain and thymus (33), and it is possible that this correlation may have some bearing on the cellular response to neural antigens which has been observed in some cases of MG (11,34). Sera of myasthenic patients reacting with both muscle and thymus seem to contain antibodies directed against antigenic determinants shared by the two organs (10), and Aarli and Tonder (35) demonstrated the presence of anti-muscle antibodies in the sera of myasthenic patients.…”

“…Moreover, thymectomy was shown to be beneficial in the management of some patients (9). Immunological studies on myasthenic patients have demonstrated the presence of a humoral as well as a cellular immune response towards thymic tissues in some cases (10,11), and a cytotoxic effect of myasthenic lymphocytes on cultured Abbreviations: AcChR, acetylcholine receptor; AcChE, acetylcholinesterase; MG, myasthenia gravis. * Present address: Department of Neurology, Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel. thymus cells has also been shown (12).…”

Assessment of cellular and humoral immunity of myasthenics.

“…A possible linkage between the thymic abnormality and the development of autoimmunity in myasthenia gravis has been suggested in the animal model (Yunis et al, 1971) and in man (Simpson, 1960(Simpson, , 1966Adner et al, 1966;Simpson et al, 1976). Recently, abnormal thymic lymphocyte functions of patients with myasthenia gravis were suggested in in vitro tests (Armstrong et al, 1973;Field et al, 1973;Mori and Kawanami, 1973;Goust et al, 1974;Simpson et al, 1976). The purpose of this paper is to report a comprehensive immunological study of myasthenia gravis and to construct a hypothesis that a circulating antibody to thymic cells may have led to the thymic dysfunction and subsequent development of autoimmune phenomena.…”