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Hyperactive Immune System Offers Window To The Brain In Degenerative Disease

14 Jul 2008
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/114878.php

Recent findings that a mutant gene can cause abnormal overactivity in the immune system could be significant in the search for treatments of Huntington's disease (HD) and other degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, according to new research led by scientists at UCL (University College London) and published today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

HD is a fatal, incurable genetic neurological disease that usually develops in adulthood and causes abnormal involuntary movements, psychiatric symptoms and dementia. The new research by UCL scientists, working in close partnership with scientists from King's College London and institutions in Sweden, the USA and Canada, showed that abnormally high levels of molecules called cytokines - key to the body's immune response - were present in the blood of people carrying the HD gene many years before the onset of symptoms.

Finding these cytokine levels in the blood of HD gene carriers so long before they exhibit symptoms could be an important clue to some of the earliest changes caused by the HD gene. The combinations and levels of cytokines, easily measured from a blood test, could be useful markers to help measure the severity of HD, making it easier and quicker to test new drugs.

In addition, the team showed that white blood cells from HD patients were hyperactive, due to the presence of the abnormal HD gene inside the cell. This hyperactivity was also seen in microglia (the brain's immune cells) suggesting that abnormal immune activation could be one of the earliest abnormalities in HD, and that its signature in the blood could offer a glimpse into the effects of the disease in the brain. Abnormal immune activation could be a target for future treatments aimed at slowing down HD.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/114878.php


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