Thyroid microsomal antigen-antibody system and its clinical significance / 中国免疫学杂志

ABSTRACT

Thyroid microsomal antigen-antibody(TMAg-Ab)system plays an important role in the pathogenesis of autoimmune thyroid diseases.TMAb are involved in the complementmediated cytotoxicity and antibody-dependent cytotoxicity,resulting in thyroid follicle epithelial cell and basement membrane injury,followed by thyroiditis and hypothyroidism,and they may also cause hyperthyroidism through some unknown mechanisms.In recent years,indirect hemagglutination,radioimmunoassay and enzyme-inked immunosorbent assay have been used to detect TMAb in thyroid disease patients'sera,indicating the incidence as high as 90%.Measurements of T3,T4 and TSH alsoreveal that serum TMAb level is related with the variation of T3,T4 and TSH.It ispostulated that TMAg might be the lipoprotein on smooth endoplasmic reticulum ofthyroid follicle epithelial cell.Due to the difficulties to purify TMAg,its nature stillremains unclear.