Willcox H N, Newsom-Davis J, Calder L R
Clin Exp Immunol. 1984 Oct;58(1):97-106.
In most young myasthenia gravis patients, the thymic medulla contains germinal centres. Thymocytes from these cases spontaneously synthesize anti-acetylcholine receptor autoantibody (anti-AChR) in culture; after irradiation they may also selectively stimulate anti-AChR antibody production by autologous blood lymphocytes. By depleting cortical or mature thymic T cells by complement killing, we now show that neither of these responses depends on thymic T cells, unlike the total IgG response to pokeweed mitogen which is T cell-dependent and shows T/B cell synergy. The results suggest that much of the spontaneous anti-AChR production is by autonomous thymic plasma cells, which may be HLA-DR-. The ability to stimulate autologous blood lymphocytes does not require viable HLA-DR+ thymic cells but appears to depend on rare antigen presenting cells from the germinal centres. In preliminary experiments, blood T cells were apparently also necessary.
在大多数年轻的重症肌无力患者中，胸腺髓质含有生发中心。这些病例的胸腺细胞在培养中可自发合成抗乙酰胆碱受体自身抗体（抗AChR）；照射后，它们还可选择性刺激自体血淋巴细胞产生抗AChR抗体。通过补体杀伤清除皮质或成熟胸腺T细胞，我们现在发现，与对商陆有丝分裂原的总IgG反应（该反应依赖T细胞并显示T/B细胞协同作用）不同，这些反应均不依赖胸腺T细胞。结果表明，大部分自发抗AChR产生是由自主性胸腺浆细胞完成的，这些浆细胞可能不表达HLA-DR。刺激自体血淋巴细胞的能力并不需要有活力的HLA-DR+胸腺细胞，但似乎依赖于生发中心的稀有抗原呈递细胞。在初步实验中，血T细胞显然也是必需的。
