Fujii Y, Hayakawa M, Inada K, Nakahara K
First Department of Surgery, Osaka University Medical School, Japan.
Eur J Immunol. 1990 Oct;20(10):2355-8. doi: 10.1002/eji.1830201029.
In the normal thymus the number of lymphocytes and the proportion of CD4+CD8+ double-positive cells decrease as a function of age. Six thymomas in elderly patients without myasthenia gravis had a large number of double-positive T cells, as seen in the normal thymic cortex. This suggests that the epithelial cells of thymoma have the function of cortical epithelium and can induce precursor T cells to differentiate to the double-positive stage but not further. In seven thymomas with associated myasthenia gravis, however, there was a conspicuous population of mature single-positive T lymphocytes. These mature T cells may include autoreactive T cells.
在正常胸腺中，淋巴细胞数量及CD4+CD8+双阳性细胞比例随年龄增长而降低。6例无重症肌无力的老年患者的胸腺瘤中有大量双阳性T细胞，如同正常胸腺皮质所见。这表明胸腺瘤的上皮细胞具有皮质上皮功能，可诱导前体T细胞分化至双阳性阶段，但不能进一步分化。然而，在7例伴有重症肌无力的胸腺瘤中，有显著数量的成熟单阳性T淋巴细胞。这些成熟T细胞可能包括自身反应性T细胞。
