Dataset Information

Analysis of peripheral B cells and autoantibodies against the anti-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor derived from patients with myasthenia gravis using single-cell manipulation tools.

ABSTRACT: The majority of patients with myasthenia gravis (MG), an organ-specific autoimmune disease, harbor autoantibodies that attack the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR-Abs) at the neuromuscular junction of skeletal muscles, resulting in muscle weakness. Single cell manipulation technologies coupled with genetic engineering are very powerful tools to examine T cell and B cell repertoires and the dynamics of adaptive immunity. These tools have been utilized to develop mAbs in parallel with hybridomas, phage display technologies and B-cell immortalization. By applying a single cell technology and novel high-throughput cell-based binding assays, we identified peripheral B cells that produce pathogenic nAChR-Abs in patients with MG. Although anti-nAChR antibodies produced by individual peripheral B cells generally exhibited low binding affinity for the ?-subunit of the nAChR and great sequence diversity, a small fraction of these antibodies bound with high affinity to native-structured nAChRs on cell surfaces. B12L, one such Ab isolated here, competed with a rat Ab (mAb35) for binding to the human nAChR and thus considered to recognize the main immunogenic region (MIR). By evaluating the Ab in in vitro cell-based assays and an in vivo rat passive transfer model, B12L was found to act as a pathogenic Ab in rodents and presumably in humans.These findings suggest that B cells in peripheral blood may impact MG pathogenicity. Our methodology can be applied not only to validate pathogenic Abs as molecular target of MG treatment, but also to discover and analyze Ab production systems in other human diseases.

SUBMITTER: Makino T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5645109 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Analysis of peripheral B cells and autoantibodies against the anti-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor derived from patients with myasthenia gravis using single-cell manipulation tools.

Makino Tomohiro T Nakamura Ryuichi R Terakawa Maki M Muneoka Satoshi S Nagahira Kazuhiro K Nagane Yuriko Y Yamate Jyoji J Motomura Masakatsu M Utsugisawa Kimiaki K

PloS one 20171017 10

The majority of patients with myasthenia gravis (MG), an organ-specific autoimmune disease, harbor autoantibodies that attack the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR-Abs) at the neuromuscular junction of skeletal muscles, resulting in muscle weakness. Single cell manipulation technologies coupled with genetic engineering are very powerful tools to examine T cell and B cell repertoires and the dynamics of adaptive immunity. These tools have been utilized to develop mAbs in parallel with hybri ...[more]

PMID: 29040265

Similar Datasets

Project description:Only around 80% of patients with generalized myasthenia gravis (MG) have serum antibodies to acetylcholine receptor [AChR; acetylcholine receptor antibody positive myasthenia gravis (AChR-MG)] by the radioimmunoprecipitation assay used worldwide. Antibodies to muscle specific kinase [MuSK; MuSK antibody positive myasthenia gravis (MuSK-MG)] make up a variable proportion of the remaining 20%. The patients with neither AChR nor MuSK antibodies are often called seronegative (seronegative MG, SNMG). There is accumulating evidence that SNMG patients are similar to AChR-MG in clinical features and thymic pathology. We hypothesized that SNMG patients have low-affinity antibodies to AChR that cannot be detected in solution phase assays, but would be detected by binding to the AChRs on the cell membrane, particularly if they were clustered at the high density that is found at the neuromuscular junction. We expressed recombinant AChR subunits with the clustering protein, rapsyn, in human embryonic kidney cells and tested for binding of antibodies by immunofluorescence. To identify AChRs, we tagged either AChR or rapsyn with enhanced green fluorescence protein, and visualized human antibodies with Alexa Fluor-labelled secondary or tertiary antibodies, or by fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS). We correlated the results with the thymic pathology where available. We detected AChR antibodies to rapsyn-clustered AChR in 66% (25/38) of sera previously negative for binding to AChR in solution and confirmed the results with FACS. The antibodies were mainly IgG1 subclass and showed ability to activate complement. In addition, there was a correlation between serum binding to clustered AChR and complement deposition on myoid cells in patients' thymus tissue. A similar approach was used to demonstrate that MuSK antibodies, although mainly IgG4, were partially IgG1 subclass and capable of activating complement when bound to MuSK on the cell surface. These observations throw new light on different forms of MG paving the way for improved diagnosis and management, and the approaches used have applicability to other antibody-mediated conditions.

Dataset Information

Analysis of peripheral B cells and autoantibodies against the anti-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor derived from patients with myasthenia gravis using single-cell manipulation tools.

Publications

Analysis of peripheral B cells and autoantibodies against the anti-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor derived from patients with myasthenia gravis using single-cell manipulation tools.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets