Elevated expression of interleukin-33 in myasthenia gravis patients
Zhongkui Wang1, Wei Wang2, Yuping Chen2
1Department of Neurology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, No. 28 Fuxing Road, Beijing 100853, China; Department of Neurology, the Eighth Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, No. 17 Heishanhu Road, Beijing 100091, China.
Abstract:
Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an archetypal autoimmune disorder of the neuromuscular junction. The imbalance of inflammatory cytokines are involved in the pathogenesis of MG. IL-33, a member of the IL-1 family, plays a key immune-modulation role in several autoimmune disease. However, its regulatory role in MG remains unclear. Here, we demonstrated that IL-33 expression in the serum of MG patients was significantly increased. We further proved that the serum levels of IL-33 were significantly negative correlated with the expression levels of TSLP. Increased serum IL-33 levels positively correlated with the upregulation of IL-17A levels and the quantitative myasthenia gravis (QMG) score in MG patients. Our findings indicate that IL-33 plays a potent immuno- enhancing role in the pathogenesis of MG by downregulating TSLP, consequently affecting the development of Th17 cells in MG.
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