{"id":3127,"date":"2022-03-30T14:40:56","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T14:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/memory-t-cells-suggest-parkinsons-may-be-an-autoimmune-disease-medical-news-today\/"},"modified":"2022-03-30T14:40:56","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T14:40:56","slug":"memory-t-cells-suggest-parkinsons-may-be-an-autoimmune-disease-medical-news-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/30\/memory-t-cells-suggest-parkinsons-may-be-an-autoimmune-disease-medical-news-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Memory T cells suggest Parkinson's may be an autoimmune disease – Medical News Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parkinson\u2019s disease<\/a><\/hl-trusted-source> is a progressive brain disorder that causes shaking, stiffness, walking, balance, and coordination problems.
Almost a million people<\/a> in the United States have Parkinson\u2019s, and more than 10 million people have the disease worldwide.
Nerve cells produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter or brain hormone that helps to control movement. The death of these cells in a part of the brain called the substantia nigra is responsible for problems with movement, or \u201cmotor\u201d symptoms, in Parkinson\u2019s.
However, years before people develop the motor symptoms of Parkinson\u2019s, patients can experience constipation, problems with sleep, and changes in their sense of smell.
Scientists are unsure what the initial trigger for the disease might be, but auto-immunity \u2014 when the immune system attacks the body\u2019s own cells \u2014 could be one possibility.<\/strong>
\u201cThe evidence that [Parkinson\u2019s disease] may partially be an autoimmune disease is just beginning to accumulate,\u201d said James Beck, Ph.D.<\/a>, chief scientific officer of the Parkinson\u2019s Foundation in the United States.
Inflammation is associated with Parkinson\u2019s, and it may be a result of autoimmune processes, he told Medical News Today<\/em>.
\u201cHowever, it is not clear what is the trigger that initiates this process,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is, inflammation is like a slow burn, but we do not yet know the spark that starts that fire.\u201d
Clumps of a protein called alpha-synuclein, which accumulate inside neurons in the brains of patients, could be the spark that triggers inflammation.
In 2020, scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in La Jolla, CA, published a study<\/a><\/hl-trusted-source> that suggested that the immune system begins to target alpha-synuclein early in the course of Parkinson\u2019s disease.
They found that patients had many immune cells in their blood that responded specifically to alpha-synuclein shortly after their diagnosis.
The same researchers have now found a distinctive \u201cgenetic signature\u201d in memory T cells that respond to alpha-synuclein.<\/strong>
Memory T cells are immune cells that remember the specific molecular features of past infections or autoimmune reactions.
They have published their study in the journal npj Parkinson\u2019s Disease<\/em><\/a><\/hl-trusted-source>.
\u201cParkinson\u2019s disease is not usually seen as an autoimmune disease,\u201d says one of the authors, Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn, Ph.D.<\/a>
\u201cBut all of our work points toward T cells having a role in the disease,\u201d she adds.
However, whether autoimmunity actually causes the disease has yet to be proven.<\/strong>
\u201cAt this point, it is not established whether autoimmunity is a prime cause rather than a secondary reaction,\u201d said Alessandro Sette, Dr.Biol.Sci.,<\/a> who co-led the work with Professor Arlehamn.
He told MNT<\/em> that their earlier research supported the idea that autoimmunity triggers the disease, \u201cbut the question is still very open.\u201d
\u201cIn any case, even if the T cell reactivity was secondary, it could still have value as a much-needed diagnostic,\u201d he added.
The researchers compared the activity of genes in memory T cells from people with Parkinson\u2019s and those from healthy controls matched for their age.
When they focused on patients whose T cells reacted to alpha-synuclein, they discovered a range of genes with different activity levels than controls.<\/strong>
Among these were genes previously linked to Parkinson\u2019s, including some that are involved in oxidative stress and inflammation.
The genetic signature of Parkinson\u2019s in these cells also included a gene called LRRK2<\/em>, which is 1 of 2 genes most commonly linked to the \u201cfamilial\u201d type of Parkinson\u2019s that runs in families.
The gene is known to be active in neurons, where it plays a role in the disease process, but this is the first time scientists have found it to be active in T cells.
\u201cThe association of LRRK2<\/em> with PD has been known for a long time,\u201d said Professor Sette.
However, the genetic signature includes several other genes not previously linked to the disease.<\/strong>
\u201cWhat we are most excited about is the large number of new and novel potential targets that the approach has uncovered,\u201d Prof. Sette told MNT<\/em>.
It may be possible to delay or halt the progression of the disease by targeting these genes in the early stages before motor symptoms develop.<\/strong>
The authors report that one of the limitations of their study was that they did not have information about how far the disease had progressed in patients.
In addition, they studied T cells in the bloodstream and did not have direct evidence that these cells actually target neurons in the brains of people with Parkinson\u2019s.<\/strong>
In the future, they plan to study post-mortem brain samples to discover whether this is the case.
The scientists hope that the genetic signature of Parkinson\u2019s in memory T cells could one day help doctors identify people who will develop the disease.<\/strong>
Their discovery could also inspire new treatments that target the proteins that these particular genes make.
\u201cNow that we can see what these T cells are doing, we think intervening with antibody therapies could have an impact on the disease progression, especially early on,\u201d says Prof. Sette<\/a>.
\u201cA growing number of researchers are becoming interested in the potential of targeting the immune system in the development of treatments that may slow the loss of cells in Parkinson\u2019s \u2014 something that no treatment, to date, had been shown to do,\u201d said Professor David Dexter, Ph.D.,<\/a> associate director of research at Parkinson\u2019s U.K<\/a>.
\u201cThis research helps increase our understanding of which targets could provide an opportunity to develop treatments that address the underlying causes of the condition,\u201d he added.
The authors of a recent article are suggesting that the gradual rise in Parkinson's is a pandemic. They ask why this is occurring and what can be done.<\/a>
Parkinson\u2019s disease is a neurological condition that affects movement and thinking. Here, learn about the early signs and why it happens.<\/a>
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Parkinson\u2019s disease is a progressive brain disorder that causes shaking, stiffness, walking, balance, and coordination problems.Almost a million people in the United States have Parkinson\u2019s, and more than 10 million people have the disease worldwide.Nerve cells produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter or brain hormone that helps to control movement. The death of these cells in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}