Indirect immunofluorescence and generation of cyclic-AMP investigation with Graves' patients' sera.

Generation of cAMP was measured on human thyroid slices and indirect immunofluorescence was carried out on frozen human thyroid sections. Sera from 16 previously not treated thyrotoxic patients and from 5 euthyroid patients were used. The majority of the thyrotoxic sera (13 out of 16) provoked enhanced generation of cAMP and the same cases showed positivity by indirect immunofluorescence. The possible connection between enhanced generation of cAMP and detectability of antibodies binding to different thyroid structures is discussed.