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pubmed:abstractText |
Monoclonal antibodies have been raised against thymomatous epithelial cells with the use of fragments of a human thymoma as source of antigen. These monoclonals, which do not react with cultured epithelial cells or sections from normal thymus (except for some cells of Hassall's corpuscles), label a large number of cells in thymoma sections. In addition, they recognize cross-striations from skeletal muscle cells. Immunoblotting studies reveal that the proteins recognized on thymoma and muscle are in the same molecular weight range, suggesting that these proteins, which share a common epitope, are identical. These findings indicate that the production of circulating anti-cross-striational autoantibodies observed in most patients with thymoma could derive from immunization against a protein abnormally expressed by neoplastic epithelial cells.
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