Possible involvement of toll-like receptors in the pathogenesis of myasthenia gravis.

Toll-like receptors (TLRs), the innate immunity components, have been demonstrated to participate in multiple autoimmune diseases. However, our knowledge of the roles of TLRs in myasthenia gravis (MG) is still scarce. In this study, we detected the mRNA expression of TLR1 to TLR10 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of MG patients and the healthy controls by quantitative real-time polymerase transcription chain reaction. Our data demonstrate that aberrant expressions of TLRs exist in the PBMCs of MG patients and of the total, expression level of TLR9 mRNA has significantly positive relation with the clinical severity of MG, which suggests that TLRs may be involved in the pathogenesis of MG.