Myasthenia gravis and HLA phenotypes in Jamaicans

We determined HLA-antigen frequencies and corresponding relative risks (RR) in 30 Jamaicans with myasthenia gravis (MG) and 40 normal controls.. using a microcytotoxicity assay and commercially prepared typing trays, we found that the strongest HLA associations with MG in Jamaicans were with HLA-A2 (RR = 6.15), HLA-B8 (RR = 3.4), HLA-B13 (RR=7.6), and DQw4 (RR = 3.8). After correction of the P value for the number of antigens tested, only HLA-A2 was stastistically significantly increased in MG patients. There was a statistically significant negative association between Mg and HLA-DR2, as well as as HLA-A9 and -B5. No correlation was observed between HLA phenotype, thymic disease, clinical grades, or disease course. HLA-A2 and sex were independent risk factors for MG, female patients having a higher risk (RR = 5.8). Further studies using larger patient and control groups, locally derived typing sera, and DNA probe analysis are indicated. (AU)

Immune response during human schistosomiasis mansoni. II. Occurrence of eosinophil-dependent cytotoxic antibodies in relation to intensity and duration of infection

Plasma samples from St. Lucians were tested for the presence of antibodies which cooperate in vitro with normal human luekocytes in causing cytotoxic damage to schistosomula of Schistosoma mansoni. The in vitro antibody activity, which has been previosly shown to depend on eosinophil effector cells was detected in 56 percent of the individuals with known, current S. mansoni infections and in 14 percent of control subjects from the same endemic area. Quantitatively, eosinophil dependent cytoxic antibody (EDCA) activity, when expressed as the maximum amount of damage to schistosomula induced at high plasma concentration, correlated significantly with the intensity of S.mansoni infection as detemined by fecal egg count, the highest levels of activity occuring in patients with stool counts of 60 eggs/ml or greater. In addition, plasma ECDA activity was found to correlate with the in vitro blastogenic responsiveness of patients' lympjocytes to three different parasite antigen preparations. In contrast, titrations of ECDA activity failed to reveal a relationship between ECDA titer and the most recent egg count performned on each subjects. However, a significant correlation was observed when titers were compared to egg counts averaged over a 3-year period. Neither maximal ECDA activity nor titer was found to correlate with the duration of known schistosome infection (AU)