期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:1972
卷号:69
期号:7
页码:1711-1715
DOI:10.1073/pnas.69.7.1711
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:Plasma membranes of cells from retroorbital tissue have been prepared from the Harderian glands of guinea pigs and have been characterized as being reasonably free of other subcellular structures by electron microscopy and by enzyme-marker analyses. Both bovine thyrotropin and a proteolytic derivative of bovine thyrotropin with exophthalmogenic activity but without thyroid-stimulating activity specifically bind to these membranes. Gammaglobulin from the sera of patients with malignant exophthalmos increases the binding of both pituitary factors, whereas binding is not similarly increased by gammaglobulin from the sera of individuals who are not exophthalmic. The increased binding caused by the gammaglobulin from exophthalmic patients is the same whether the sera are positive or negative for the long-acting thyroid stimulator. Present binding experiments do not indicate a direct interaction between the gammaglobulin and the plasma membranes of the cells from Harderian glands. A mechanism for the pathogenesis of human exophthalmos is proposed on the basis of these data.