Incidence and specificities of labeled thyrotropic hormone (TSH) binding immunoglobulins (LTB-Igs) in patients with Graves' disease and other thyroid disorders

Japanese Journal of Medicine
T AkamizuH Imura

Abstract

Using [125I]bTSH, labeled TSH binding (LTB) in sera from 203 patients with various thyroid disorders was studied. Four of them with known potent anti-TSH antibody showed extremely high LTB, as has been reported previously. Excluding these 4 sera, the mean +/- s.d. of serum LTB from 199 patients was calculated to be 8.6 +/- 2.1%. LTB exceeding 10.7% (mean + 1 s.d.) was observed in 16 sera; these were taken as increased. LTB measured by polyethyleneglycol (PEG) precipitation correlated significantly with the serum IgG concentration; however, sera with increased LTB had high values irrespective of the serum IgG concentration. Specificities of increased LTB in 13 sera were further analyzed by means of binding to Protein A-sepharose and displacement studies using bTSH and nonradioactively iodinated bTSH. A significant correlation was observed between the LTB obtained by PEG and those by Protein A-sepharose. BTSH specificity was confirmed in 5 of the 13 sera; 7 of the remaining 8 sera showed displacement only by iodinated bTSH. None of the control Graves' sera showed any significant displacement. Comparisons of the results of measurement of LTB by Protein A-sepharose and those by the displacement studies disclosed that most of displa...Continue Reading

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