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C Sanjeevi

Publications and source records attributed to C Sanjeevi.

3 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

No evidence for autoimmunity as a major cause of the empty sella syndrome.

OBJECTIVE: The cause of empty sella syndrome (ESS) remains largely unknown. We measured eleven organ-specific autoantibodies in serum in order to evaluate possible autoimmune components in ESS. PATIENTS: Thirty patients with ESS and 50 healthy blood donors participated in the study. MEASUREMENTS: Detection of pituitary autoantibodies was performed by immunoblotting with human pituitary cytosol as antigen. Thyroid peroxidase (TPO) and TSH receptor (TRAK) autoantibodies were analysed by radioimmunoassay. The remaining eight autoantibodies were detected by in vitro transcription and translation of the autoantigens and immunoprecipitation. RESULTS: The majority of the ESS patients (18/30) exhibited no immunoreactivity at all. None of the remaining 12 ESS patients reacted against more than one autoantigen. No immunoreactivity was found more frequently among ESS patients than healthy blood donors. Pituitary autoantibodies were not correlated to the ESS patients' pituitary function or sellar size, although the results indicated a tendency of increased autoimmunity in patients with hypopituitarism and normal sella size respectively. CONCLUSION: Detection of autoantibodies is a valuable tool in the diagnostic work-up of autoimmune diseases. By analysing a large number of organ-specific autoantibodies we found no evidence of ESS being associated with any specific autoimmune disease. The pathogenesis of ESS is believed to be heterogeneous and our findings suggest autoimmune components to be of minor importance. In some selective cases, ESS in combination with hypopituitarism may be the result of an autoimmune disease in the pituitary gland but this needs further investigation.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

T-cell expansions with conserved T-cell receptor beta chain motifs in the peripheral blood of HLA-DRB1*0401 positive patients with necrotizing vasculitis.

T lymphocytes are implicated in the pathogenesis of systemic vasculitis such as Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) and polyarteritis nodosa (PAN). In the present study, we have characterized in detail the T-cell receptor (TCR) of peripheral blood T cells from eight vasculitis patients of known HLA class II genotypes. We used flow cytometry to outline the exact TCR V gene expression, complementarity determining region 3 (CDR3) fragment analysis to estimate the degree of clonality and cDNA sequencing to define the exact TCR or beta chain sequences. The TCR CDR3 region interacts with antigenic peptides presented by HLA molecules, and it is normally immensely diverse. It was therefore of particular interest to identify a common dominating TCR BV8-F/L-G-G-A/Q-G-J2S3 beta chain sequence in the CD4(+) T cells of four unrelated vasculitis patients. Furthermore, this BV8-associated CDR3 motif was linked to the HLA-DRB1*0401 allele, as well as to active disease and/or an established BV8(+) CD4(+) T-cell expansion. In contrast, age- and HLA-matched patients with rheumatoid arthritis did not harbor the described BV8 motif. These results strongly suggest that BV8(+) CD4(+) T cells with the described CDR3 motif recognize a specific antigen presented by DR4 molecules, indicating the existence of a common vasculitis-associated antigen.

Adult↗