Project description:Autoimmune myasthenia gravis (MG) is characterized by thymic abnormalities such as hyperplasia and thymoma. Thymus plays an important role in self-tolerance and is involved in initiation and progression of the disease. A large proportion of MG patient show the presence of ectopic germinal centers (GC) in thymus that are absent in normal individuals. However, the exact mechanism how this change in thymus morphology is triggered and if this is related to pathophysiology of the disease remains unknown. In this study we have compared the mRNA profile of thymus samples obtained during a clinical trial (Thymectomy Trial in Non-Thymomatous Myasthenia Gravis Patients Receiving Prednisone Therapy. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00294658). We have compared the miRNA profile of thymus samples that have distinct germinal centers with those that lack them using Affymetrix miRNA array 4.0 to identify the differentially expressed genes with in the two groups.
Project description:Autoimmune myasthenia gravis (MG) is characterized by thymic abnormalities such as hyperplasia and thymoma. Thymus plays an important role in self-tolerance and is involved in initiation and progression of the disease. A large proportion of MG patient show the presence of ectopic germinal centers (GC) in thymus that are absent in normal individuals. However, the exact mechanism how this change in thymus morphology is triggered and if this is related to pathophysiology of the disease remains unknown. In this study we have compared the mRNA profile of thymus samples obtained during a clinical trial (Thymectomy Trial in Non-Thymomatous Myasthenia Gravis Patients Receiving Prednisone Therapy. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00294658). We have compared the mRNA profile of thymus samples that have distinct germinal centers with those that lack them using Affymetrix human transcriptome array 2.0 to identify the differentially expressed genes with in the two groups.
