Programmed Death-1: From gene to protein in autoimmune human myasthenia gravis

The key role of an inhibitory receptor, Programmed Death-1, has been evaluated in 273 patients with autoimmune myasthenia gravis. At the genetic level, SNP's genotyping showed no significant association to the disease. Gene expressions in patients were not different from that in controls. Interestingly, at the cell-surface protein level, there were significant elevated levels of PD-1 on T cells and its ligand PD-L1 on monocytes in the patients compared to controls. However, we could not demonstrate any secreted soluble forms of PD-1 among the patients and controls. Thus, our study shows PD-1 might have a natural regulatory property behind MG.