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This Article IMMEDIATE FREE ACCESS ARTICLE OA Free Full Text Full Text (PDF) OA All Versions of this Article: JOE-09-0089v1 202/2/217    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Endo, T. Articles by Kobayashi, T. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Endo, T. Articles by Kobayashi, T.

Third Department of Internal Medicine, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Medicine and Engineering, University of Yamanashi, Chuo City, Yamanashi 409-3898, Japan

(Correspondence should be addressed to T Endo; Email: endot{at}yamanashi.ac.jp)

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Society for Endocrinology's Re-use Licence which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

^* (T Endo and T Kobayashi contributed equally to this work)

We immunized AKR/N mice with bovine thyroglobulin (Tg) once every 2 weeks and monitored their time-dependent changes in ¹²⁵I uptake activity in the thyroid glands. After 3 months, anti-Tg antibody was positive in all sera from the immunized mice. Serum free tri-iodothyronine (T₃) and free thyroxine (T₄) levels in the immunized mice (n=6) were significantly higher than those in the saline injected (control) mice (n=6). Neck counts as well as scintigraphy of the thyroid glands revealed that iodide uptake activity of the immunized mice was not suppressed, but was instead higher than that of the control mice. Two of the six immunized mice showed extremely high iodide uptake activity. The thyroid glands of these two mice were diffusely enlarged and the height of the epithelial cells was also increased. In addition, two mice with high iodide uptake activity produced a high titer of thyroid-stimulating antibody. Additional experiments showed that 4 out of 11 AKR/N mice and 3 out of 10 C57BL6 mice immunized with Tg had high serum free T₃/free T₄ levels, high ¹²⁵I uptake activity of the thyroid, and positive thyroid-stimulating antibody activity. Diffuse goiter, thyrotoxicosis, high iodide uptake activity, and positive thyroid-stimulating antibody are the characteristics of Graves' disease. Thus, these mice exhibit the symptoms of Graves' disease. These results suggest that immunization with Tg induces Graves'-like disease in mice and that our methods will provide a new animal model of Graves' disease.