A CTLA4high genotype is associated with myasthenia gravis in thymoma patients.
case_control · Level III
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 16178018.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Myasthenia gravis (MG) in thymoma patients depends critically on intratumorous generation and export of mature autoreactive CD4+ T cells. Why non-MG thymomas fail to produce CD4+ T cells is unknown. We studied three single-nucleotide polymorphisms of the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen 4(CTLA4) gene in thymoma patients, nonthymoma early-onset MG patients, and control subjects. Surprisingly, the CTLA4high genotype +49A/A, which is protective against several autoimmune diseases, exerted a prominent predisposing effect to paraneoplastic MG in thymoma patients. The unusual disease association with a CTLA4high genotype implies a unique pathogenesis of paraneoplastic MG, with high CTLA4 levels possibly supporting the nontolerogenic selection of CD4+ T cells in MG-associated thymomas.
Medical subject headings
- Antigens, Differentiation
- Myasthenia Gravis
- Thymoma
- Thymus Neoplasms