Rekha Dhanwani, João Rodrigues Lima-Junior, Ashu Sethi, John Pham, Gregory Williams, April Frazier, Yaqian Xu, Amy W Amara, David G Standaert, Jennifer G Goldman, Irene Litvan, Roy N Alcalay, Bjoern Peters, David Sulzer, Cecilia S Lindestam Arlehamn, Alessandro Sette
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a multi-stage neurodegenerative disorder with largely unknown etiology. Recent findings have identified PD-associated autoimmune features including roles for T cells. To further characterize the role of T cells in PD, we performed RNA sequencing on PBMC and peripheral CD4 and CD8 memory T cell subsets derived from PD patients and age-matched healthy controls. When the groups were stratified by their T cell responsiveness to alpha-synuclein (α-syn) as a proxy for an ongoing inflammatory autoimmune response, the study revealed a broad differential gene expression profile in memory T cell subsets and a specific PD associated gene signature...
March 21, 2022: NPJ Parkinson's Disease