FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |   Search Term  Advanced Search

Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe

Previous Volume 341:57-58 July 1, 1999 Number 1 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text Purchase this article Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited Related Article by Yu, Z. PubMed Citation

To the Editor: Yu and Lennon (Jan. 21 issue)¹ present an intriguing hypothesis about how intravenous immune globulin ("IVIg") therapy works in autoimmune diseases. Another possibility is that simultaneous ligation of the Fc receptor II and the B-cell receptor inhibits B-cell activation.² Binding of the Fc receptor II by the constant regions (Fc) of IgG molecules inhibits B-cell function through immune tyrosine inhibitory motifs (ITIM) on the cytoplasmic tail of the Fc receptor II. This effect induces anergy or apoptosis³ of activated B cells. Such a system could regulate the quantity of IgG in the plasma. When the IgG concentration . . . [Full Text of this Article]

References

HOME  |  SUBSCRIBE  |  SEARCH  |  CURRENT ISSUE  |  PAST ISSUES  |  COLLECTIONS  |  PRIVACY  |  HELP  |  beta.nejm.org Comments and questions? Please contact us. The New England Journal of Medicine is owned, published, and copyrighted © 2008 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.