NATURE: Specific T-cells induce grey matter degeneration

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frodo
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NATURE: Specific T-cells induce grey matter degeneration

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An important article about T-cells has been published. There are some expert comments about it available at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00563-6 . They say that the progressive phase is due to a different kind of T-cells that increase during the disease evolution and affect grey matter.

"Using a rat model and blood samples from people who had multiple sclerosis, the authors identify the protein target of an immune cell that attacks the brain region called grey matter"

"The authors assessed the levels of myelin-reactive and β-synuclein-reactive T cells in blood samples from people with multiple sclerosis [...]. This suggests that β-synuclein might be a late-stage autoimmune target that arises through a process called epitope spreading"

The original article:

β-Synuclein-reactive T cells induce autoimmune CNS grey matter degeneration

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-0964-2

Abstract

The grey matter is a central target of pathological processes in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. The grey matter is often also affected in multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system.

The mechanisms that underlie grey matter inflammation and degeneration in multiple sclerosis are not well understood. Here we show that, in Lewis rats, T cells directed against the neuronal protein β-synuclein specifically invade the grey matter and that this is accompanied by the presentation of multifaceted clinical disease.

The expression pattern of β-synuclein induces the local activation of these T cells and, therefore, determined inflammatory priming of the tissue and targeted recruitment of immune cells. The resulting inflammation led to significant changes in the grey matter, which ranged from gliosis and neuronal destruction to brain atrophy. In humans, β-synuclein-specific T cells were enriched in patients with chronic-progressive multiple sclerosis.

These findings reveal a previously unrecognized role of β-synuclein in provoking T-cell-mediated pathology of the central nervous system.
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