Lymphocyte sensitization to thymus and lymph node antigen in multiple sclerosis and other neurological diseases.

Circulating lymphocytes from patients with multiple sclerosis are sensitized to saline homogenate of human thymus. They also show a minor degree of sensitization to lymph node extract. The sensitization to thymus is greater in multiple sclerosis than it is in other neurological disease (except dementia paralytica) and this may be related to the degree of parenchymatous destruction which provides the antigen stimulus or to astroglial overgrowth in these diseases. The observations support the view that human brain and thymus may share antigen(s) of the type known as ø-antigen in mice.