-
Titin antibodies in myasthenia gravis: identification of a major immunogenic region of titin.
European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany.
Approximately 15% of patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) have thymus neoplasia. These MG with thymoma (MGT) patients show autoantibodies to striated muscle as well as autoantibodies to acetylcholine receptor. To characterize these thymoma-associated muscle antigens, we cloned a number of immunopositive cDNAs by immunoscreening muscle cDNA libraries with sera from MGT patients. Analysis of the isolated cDNAs show that all share a common sequence encoding a distinct region of the titin gene. We expressed this main immunogenic region (MIR) of titin in Escherichia coli, and determined autoantibody serum titers directed against the obtained recombinant antigen in a variety of patients. We could detect titin MIR autoantibodies in 97% of sera from MGT patients but not in control sera from healthy blood donors. Therefore, expressed titin from the MIR of the molecule is a sensitive marker antigen for evaluating the presence of thymoma in MG.
PMID: 8351016 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
-
Cited by 4 PubMed Central articles
-
Anti-cytokine autoantibodies in autoimmunity: preponderance of neutralizing autoantibodies against interferon-alpha, interferon-omega and interleukin-12 in patients with thymoma and/or myasthenia gravis.
Meager A, Wadhwa M, Dilger P, Bird C, Thorpe R, Newsom-Davis J, Willcox N.
Clin Exp Immunol. 2003 Apr; 132(1):128-36.
[Clin Exp Immunol. 2003]
-
Morvan's fibrillary chorea: a paraneoplastic manifestation of thymoma.
Lee EK, Maselli RA, Ellis WG, Agius MA.
J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1998 Dec; 65(6):857-62.
[J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1998]
-
Human autoantibodies reveal titin as a chromosomal protein.
Machado C, Sunkel CE, Andrew DJ.
J Cell Biol. 1998 Apr 20; 141(2):321-33.
[J Cell Biol. 1998]
- » See all...