Overexpression of Select T Cell Receptor Vβ Gene Families within CD4+ and CD8+ T Cell Subsets of Myasthenia Gravis Patients: A Role for Superantigen(s)?

Table 3 Median relative level of utilization of individual TCR J β gene segments recombined to V β 1 in CD4 ⁺ T cells from Myasthenia gravis patients (MG) ( n = 8) and healthy controls (HC) ( n = 7)

	Relative Jβ Gene Expression in Vβ1⁺/CD4⁺ T Cells
Jβs	MG	HC
1.1	5.8 (3.6–15.0)^a	5.8 (2.6–9.4)
1.2	5.5 (3.8–7.2)	7.6 (2.4–21.6)
1.3	1.0 (0–2.2)	1.6 (0–6.0)
1.4	0 (0–1.6)	0.4 (0–2.0)
1.5	0.3 (0–1.6)	0.7 (0–1.6)
1.6	1.7 (0.6–6.9)	2.1 (0.4–4.1)
2.1	17.8 (15.4–28)	17.7 (9.5–29.7)
2.2	9.8 (5.2–32.7)	7.0 (3.1–9.4)
2.3	5.2 (0.9–9.7)	6.2 (1.0–15.7)
2.4	0 (0–0.02)	0.2 (0–3.3)
2.5	11.3 (3.6–14.7)	13.2 (5.0–20.0)
2.6	0 (0–2.3)	0.5 (0–7.5)
2.7	33.1 (20.1–36.8)	31.5 (10.4–61.7)

p values, as determined by the nonparametric Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney two-tailed test, indicate that the patterns of Jβ gene segment expression in MG patient-derived Vβ1⁺/CD4⁺ T cells are not significantly different from those observed in the corresponding subset from healthy controls.
^aNumbers in parentheses represent the range (min–max) of values.

ISSN: 1528-3658