Immune Response Genes in Myasthenia Gravis

Genetic associations between myasthenia gravis and the HL-A system.

“…The frequency of HL-A8 was found to be significantly increased in 38 unselected myasthenics, especially in women with onset of MG below the age of 30 years (Pirskanen et al, 1972). This finding has been confirmed by many others (Behan et al, 1973;Safwenberg et al, 1973;Dick et al, 1974;Feltkamp et al, 1974;Fritze et al, 1974). Fritze et al (1974) found in addition that HL-A3 was significantly increased in male patients and was also linked to thymoma.…”

Absence of cellular hypersensitivity to muscle and thymic antigens in myasthenia gravis.

“…An association between certain histocompatibility antigens and myasthenia has also been demonstrated recently (Pirskanen et al, 1972;Behan et al, 1973). HLA-8 has been found to occur with a very high frequency in myasthenia gravis, gluten enteropathy, dermatitis herpetiformis, and autoimmune thyroiditis (Dausset et al, 1974).…”

Distribution of HLA Antigens in Patients with Mycosis fungoides

“…In particular, antigens of the HLA-B series have been found to show increased frequency in some auto-immune disorders, e.g. B8 is increased in patients with myasthenia gravis [1,9] and chronic active hepatitis [10,22], Associations have also been described in some dermatological disorders, e.g. psoriasis with B13 and BW17 in Caucasoid patients [24,28], Dermatitis herpetiformis is associated with an increased frequency of B8 [12] as are other conditions in which small intestinal mucosal abnormalities occur, e.g.…”