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Myasthenia Gravis pp 20–27Cite as

Tolerance of a Transgenic Self Antigen Expressed in the Thymus: Implication for Myasthenia gravis

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Abstract

The thymus plays a central and probably a primary role in MG, as thymectomy is an effective therapy for many patients [1]. Further, thymic abnormalities (hyperplasia or thymoma) are found histologically in 70 to 80% of MG patients [2]. The presence of an autoantigen in the thymus has been suggested by several studies, but its low expression has made it difficult to detect, except in very rare myoid cells [3]. Other cell types have also been reported to contain antigens that cross-react with antibodies to AChR [4], namely epithelial cells from thymomas [5]. By molecular biology approaches, murine epithelial cell lines from the thymic cortex and medulla, as well as human thymic epithelial cells in culture, were shown to express the α-subunit AChR mRNA [6, 7].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unité de Neurobiologie moléculaire, CNRS URA-1284, Institut Pasteur, 28 rue du Docteur Roux, 75015, Paris, France

    Anne-Marie Salmon & Jean-Pierre Changeux

  2. Laboratoire de Physiologie Thymique, CNRS ESA-8078, Hôpital Marie Lannelongue, 133, avenue de la Résistance, 92350, Le Plessis-Robinson, France

    Corinne Bruand & Sonia Berrih-Aknin

  3. Laboratoire de Technologie Cellulaire, Institut Pasteur, 28, rue du Docteur Roux, 75724, Paris cédex 15, France

    Ana Cardona

Authors
  1. Anne-Marie Salmon
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  2. Corinne Bruand
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  3. Ana Cardona
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  4. Jean-Pierre Changeux
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  5. Sonia Berrih-Aknin
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, USA

    Premkumar Christadoss (Professor) (Professor)

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© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Salmon, AM., Bruand, C., Cardona, A., Changeux, JP., Berrih-Aknin, S. (2000). Tolerance of a Transgenic Self Antigen Expressed in the Thymus: Implication for Myasthenia gravis. In: Christadoss, P. (eds) Myasthenia Gravis. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4060-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4060-7_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-5787-5

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