A one-tube polymerase chain reaction protocol demonstrates CC chemokine overexpression in Graves' disease glands

An adaptation of mixed oligonucleotide primed amplification of complementar y DNA to detect the profile of CC chemokines in biological samples is prese nted. By introducing normalization, two correction coefficients, performing a single amplification reaction, and five parallel hybridizations, intrasa mple and intersample comparisons can be reliably made. This protocol of sin gle tube PCR CC chemokine profiling was applied to tissue samples from an a utoimmune thyroid condition, Graves' disease, and from a nonautoimmune cond ition, multinodular goiter. Results demonstrate overexpression of CC chemok ines in Graves' disease, statistically significant for macrophage inflammat ory protein-1 alpha and -1 beta, which correlated with the aberrant human l eukocyte antigen class II expression by thyrocytes, as assessed by flow cyt ometry. Overexpression of CC chemokines probably plays a major role in dete rmining the characteristics of the lymphocytes migrating to the thyroid gla nd and influences the course of the disease. The study of chemokine profile should be more informative than the study of isolated chemokines and cytok ines, and as it can be applied to fine needle aspiration biopsies, it may b e useful to clinical research.