Abstract
Summary Studies of thyroid stimulating activity of serum from thyrotoxic patients has revealed an abnormal prolonged response in the mouse present in 40-60% of patients depending on the criteria used. This agent designated long acting thyroid stimulator (LATS) is a 7S globulin. Transplacental passage of LATS accounts for neonatal thyrotoxicosis—a self-limited disease. LATS is also more readily detected in patients with large goitre, exophthalmos, pretibial myxoedema and recurrence following therapy. Thyroid ablation is usually followed by a fall in the level of LATS. A fall may also be produced by steroid therapy or immunosuppressive agents. LATS probably arises from lymphoid tissue which accounts for the non-suppressibility of the hypersecreting thyroid. Its discovery provides strong evidence that hyperthyroidism is often, though not always, a disorder of immunological tolerance.
Highlights
Hyperthyroidism is a syndrome with many causes
On the other hand, mixing a thyrotoxic plasma with an antiserum to 7S v-globulin prepared in the sheep significantly impairs its mousethyroid-stimulating activity (Fig. 4) but it has no such effect on thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) or the activity of plasma from a hypothyroid patient (Kriss, Pleshakov & Chien, 1964; Dorrington & Munro, 1965; Adams & Sharard, 1965; Hoffmann et al, 1967)
Subsequent hydrolysis with cysteine produces a further cleavage to a fragment with a molecular weight 50,000 which has short-acting activity. These findings clearly indicate that long acting thyroid stimulator (LATS) activity is in a specific part of the v-globulin molecule in the slow fragment, which has been shown to contain the antigenbinding capacity of other antibodies (Cohen & Porter, 1964)
Summary
Summary Studies of thyroid stimulating activity of serum from thyrotoxic patients has revealed an abnormal prolonged response in the mouse present in 40-60% of patients depending on the criteria used. This agent designated long acting thyroid stimulator (LATS) is a 7S globulin. LATS is more readily detected in patients with large goitre, exophthalmos, pretibial myxoedema and recurrence following therapy. Thyroid ablation is usually followed by a fall in the level of LATS. A fall may be produced by steroid therapy or immunosuppressive agents. LATS probably arises from lymphoid tissue which accounts for the non-suppressibility of the hypersecreting thyroid. Its discovery provides strong evidence that hyperthyroidism is often, though not always, a disorder of immunological tolerance
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