Mapping the autoimmunizing epitopes on acetylcholine receptors
1Department of Neurological Science, Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London NW3 2PF, UK.
Abstract:
In the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis (MG), patients experience muscle weakness and fatiguability owing to loss of functional acetylcholine receptors (AChR) at the neuromuscular junction. The loss may be caused by modulation of the receptors by anti-AChR autoantibody and/or by complement-mediated focal lysis at the post-synaptic membrane. The structure of the AChR has been studied primarily because of its function as a neurotransmitter receptor. The benefit of these studies to immunologists investigating MG was illustrated at a recent meeting in which the use of the products of DNA technology to study the immunological mechanisms of MG was among the topics discussed.
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