Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disorder which has previously been shown to be associated with polymorphisms of several autoimmune predisposing genes, including IL-1, PTPN22, TNF-α and the MHC.
This lack of association between the IL-4 gene and disease contrasts to our previous results showing that MG is associated with higher secretor phenotypes of two prototype proinflammatory cytokine (TNF-alpha and IL-1) genes.