Inflammation and Epstein-Barr Virus Infection Are Common Features of Myasthenia Gravis Thymus: Possible Roles in Pathogenesis

Figure 1

Relative expression of IL-6 (a), IL-10 (b), IFN-β (c), IFN-γ (d), MxA (e), and HLA-DRα (f) in the thymus of MG patients. The transcripts were analysed by real-time PCR analysis starting from total RNA extracted from the thymus of MG patients with hyperplasia (𝑛=9), thymitis (𝑛=9), and thymic involution (𝑛=9), and 7 healthy subjects. Relative expression of the 6 genes was normalized to GAPDH and calculated as 2^−ΔΔCt; normalized values for nonpathological thymuses were used as calibrator. Values shown are means ± SEM of duplicate determinations. 𝑃 values were obtained by the Mann-Whitney 𝑈 test.

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