Effects of hormones on proliferation and apoptosis of thymocytes in patients with myasthenia gravis

Objective To study the role of glucocorticoid,estrogen and thyroxine in Fas molecular expression and apoptosis of thymocytes in patients with myasthenia gravis.Methods Expression of the thymocytes Fas,CD 4 and CD 8 molecules was detected by using flow cytometry.The thymocytes apoptosis was observed by agarose gel electrophoresis and cell morphology.The cells proliferation was studied by MTT analysis methode.Results Both estrogen and dexasone could inhibit the proliferation of thymocytes of MG patients with the difference being significant (P0.01) between experiment groups and control groups.The cultivated cells with dexasone showed character of apoptosis and the DNA of them showed typical ladder appearance in electrophoresis.The proportion of Fas thymocytes only in dexasone groups was significantly higher (P0.05) than controls.Thyroxine could accelerate the proliferation of thymocytes of MG and normal human with the difference being significant (P0.05) between experiment groups and control groups.Conclusion The hormones could obviously affect the proliferation and apoptosis of thymocytes in patients with myasthenia gravis.