Model establishment of Graves’disease by immunizing mice with hTSHR-activated splenocytes / 重庆医科大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective:To establish an animal model of Graves’disease by immunizing syngeneic BALB/c mice with hTSHR-ac-tivated splenocytes. Methods:The female BALB/c mice(6～8 weeks) were randomly divided into 2 groups(group a and group b), which were immunized with recombinant plasmid pcDNA3.1/hTSHR and blank plasmid pcDNA3.1(+) respectively for 3 times at 3-week intervals.The animals were sacrificed at 18th week and their splenocytes were isolated.Other two groups of female syn- geneic BALB/c mice(6~8 weeks) were divided randomly into experimental and control groups, which received splenocytes from group a and group b respectively. Four weeks later, the thyroid glands were removed for histological examination and the sera were determined for Total T4,TSH and TRAb measurements. Results:The thyroid tissues under light microscope displayed dif- fuse hypercellularity with the follicular epithelia being tall cuboidal cells and reduced colloid in 44% of experimental mice with irregular apical poles protruding into the follicular space; there was minimal immune cell in the interstitium with hyper- aemia and edema. Electron microscope examination revealed that the follicular epithelia contained numerous mitochondria and rough endoplasmic reticula,and many long microvilli existed in the luminal surface.The serum level of TT4 in experimental mice was higher than that in control(7.13?1.02 vs 6.43?0.57 ?g/dL) (P