Correlation with clinical data
We analyzed the correlations between the laboratory parameters and
clinical data (including age, QMGs, the concentration of AchR-Ab and the
disease duration) in the patients with MG to explore the clinical
significance of the expression of mOX40/mOX40L and
sOX40/sOX40L. In the MG group, the expression of OX40 on
CD4+ T cells and sOX40 levels were positively
correlated with the QMGs (Fig. 2A, J ). The expression of OX40
on CD4+ T cells was positively correlated with the
concentration of AchR-Ab (Fig. 2B ). A trend toward a positive
correlation was observed between the sOX40 levels and disease duration
(Fig. 2L ) and a trend toward a negative correlation was
observed between the sOX40L levels and disease duration (Fig.
2O ). The correlation analysis results for the MG group are shown inTable 4 and Fig. 2 .
Furthermore, in the RSMG group, the expression of OX40 on
CD4+ T cells positively correlated with the AchR-Ab
concentration (Fig. 4A ), while OX40L expression on
CD19+ B cells and CD14+ monocytes
was negatively correlated with the disease duration
(Supplementary Table 10, Fig. 4B, C ). The expression of
membrane-bound and soluble OX40/OX40L showed no significant correlation
with clinical data in the USMG and PSMG groups
(Supplementary Table 9,
Supplementary Table 11 ).