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 4 Median relative level of utilization of individual TCR J β gene segments recombined to V β 1 in CD8 ⁺ T cells from Myasthenia gravis patients (MG) ( n = 8) and healthy controls (HC) ( n = 7)

	Relative Jβ Gene Expression in Vβ1⁺/CD8⁺ T Cells
Jβs	MG	HC
1.1	15.3 (8.7–20.0)*	8.9 (2.9–23.3)
1.2	8.2 (1.8–11.8)	6.1 (0.9–7.4)
1.3	1.3 (0.9–2.9)	0.5 (0–4.4)
1.4	0.7 (0–3.1)	1.1 (0–5.2)
1.5	1.4 (0–2.2)	0.8 (0–2.8)
1.6	0.6 (0.1–1.5)	1.1 (0–37.3)
2.1	16.2 (7.3–35.4)	24.0 (2.7–33.4)
2.2	6.0 (2.3–45.6)	9.3 (2.3–9.9)
2.3	5.2 (0.6–14.7)	5.0 (2.9–12.6)
2.4	0.1 (0–4.7)	0.1 (0–0.1)
2.5	7.9 (4.3–43.6)	7.5 (5–11.4)
2.6	0.4 (0–4.8)	0.3 (0–1.2)
2.7	23.5 (12.8–35.4)	29.7 (25.9–43.2)

p values, as determined by the nonparametric Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney two-tailed test, indicate that the pattern of Jβ gene segment expression in MG patient-derived Vβ1⁺/CD8⁺ 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