Abstract
Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an antibody-mediated autoimmune disease of neuromuscular transmission, characterised by fatiguable weakness of striated muscle. Patients with MG show heterogeneity in clinical features, thymus pathology and HLA associations. For example, young onset cases are typically female, show hyperplasia of the thymus medulla and are very likely to have HLA-B8 and -DR3, the association being somewhat stronger with -B8 (Compston, Vincent, Newsom-Davis and Batchelor 1980).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Beeson D, Brydson M, Wood H, Vincent A, Newsom-Davis J. (1989) Human muscle acetylcholine receptor: cloning and expression in E. coli of cDNA for the alpha-subunit. Biochem Soc Trans 17: 219–220
Compston DAS, Vincent A, Newsom-Davis J, Batchelor JR. (1980) Clinical, pathological, HLA antigen and immunological evidence for disease heterogeneity in myasthenia gravis. Brain 103: 579–601
Drachman DB, Adams RN, Stanley EF, Pesronk A. (1980) Mechanisms of acetylcholine receptor loss in myasthenia gravis. J Neurol Neurosurg & Psychiatr 43: 6
Engel AG. (1980) Morphologic and immunopathologic findings in myasthenia gravis and in congenital myasthenic syndromes. J Neurol Neurosug Psychiat 43: 577–598
Harcourt GC, Sommer N, Rothbard J, Willcox HNA, Newsom-Davis J. (1988) A juxtamembrane epitope on the human acetylcholine receptor recognized by T cells in myasthenia gravis. J Clin Invest 82: 1295–1300
Hohlfeld R, Toyka KV, Heininger H, Grosse-Wilde H, Kalies I. (1984) Autoimmune human T lymphocytes specific for acetylcholine receptor. Nature 310: 244–246
Hohlfeld R, Toyka K, Miner L, Walgrave S, Contri-Tronconi B. (1988) Amphipathic segment of the nicotinic receptor alpha-subunit contains epitopes recognized by T lymphocytes in myasthenia gravis. J Clin Invest 81: 657–660
Newsom-Davis, Harcourt G, Sommer N, Beeson D, Willcox N, Rothbard J. (1989) T cell reactivity in myasthenia gravis. J Autoimmunity 2 (Supplement): 101–108
Rothbard JB, Taylor WB. (1988) A sequence pattern common to T cell epitopes. EMBO J 7: 93–100
Tzartos SJ, Lindstrom JM. (1980) Monoclonal antibodies used to probe acetylcholine receptor structure: localization of the main immunogenic region and detection of similarities between subunits. Proc Natl Acad Sci 77: 755–759
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Newsom-Davis, J., Harcourt, G., Beeson, D., Sommer, N., Vincent, A., Willcox, N. (1990). T Cell Reactivity to Acetylcholine Receptor in Myasthenia Gravis. In: Demaine, A.G., Banga, JP., McGregor, A.M. (eds) The Molecular Biology of Autoimmune Disease. NATO ASI Series, vol 38. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75133-2_33
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75133-2_33
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-75135-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-75133-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive