First direct evidence that abnormal α-synuclein in PD triggers an immune response
 

"Our findings raise the possibility that an immunotherapy approach could be used to increase the immune system's tolerance for alpha-synuclein ..."

NeuroscienceNews article: "Parkinson's is Partly an Autoimmune Disease"

Parkinson's is Partly an Autoimmune Disease - Neuroscience News
(hat tip to 999---666 at HU for this link)

Research paper: "T cells from patients with Parkinson's disease recognize alpha-synuclein peptides", Sulzer, D. et al. Nature (2017), doi:10.1038/nature22815

T cells from patients with Parkinson’s disease recognize α-synuclein peptides : Nature : Nature Research
(abstract only, rest is behind the paywall)

This research builds on earlier work reported in a 2014 paper, which contains some good background information.

Research paper: "MHC-I expression renders catecholaminergic neurons susceptible to T-cell-mediated degeneration", Cebrian, C. et al. Nature Communications 5, 3633 (2014), doi:10.1038/ncomms4633

MHC-I expression renders catecholaminergic neurons susceptible to T-cell-mediated degeneration | Nature Communications
(this is an open-access research paper)

For anyone who liked the NeuroscienceNews article, but found the research paper(s) a bit heavy going, there is another article about the Sulzer et al. paper, on the AlzForum website.

It's a slightly longer article, which goes substantially beyond the Columbia University press release, and also includes a significant comment from a couple of independent academics:

Trigger Warning: α-Synuclein Sets Off T Cells in Parkinson’s | ALZFORUM

FYI, I alerted Dr. Sulzer to the Stanford study. It seems to me that there is a possible overlap. He responded right away.

Yes, that's interesting.

Speaking of overlaps, I'm sure that Sulzer et al. would have spotted that comment included with the AlzForum article, which mentioned a recent paper by Gendelman et al. [1]. That paper seems to have a definite overlap with their work.

[1] Evaluation of the safety and immunomodulatory effects of sargramostim in a randomized, double-blind phase 1 clinical Parkinson’s disease trial, Gendelman et al., npj Parkinson's Disease 3, Article number: 10 (2017 March 27)

Evaluation of the safety and immunomodulatory effects of sargramostim in a randomized, double-blind phase 1 clinical Parkinson’s disease trial | npj Parkinson'''s Disease
(this is an open-access research paper)

I've just spotted a new post, titled "The autoimmunity of Parkinson's disease?", on "The Science of Parkinson's disease" blog.

It is written in the usual folky SOPD style (with the usual number of typos and "gramos"), and contains a number of helpful diagrams.

The post is quite long, but I don't think it's necessary to read all of it, to get a lot out of it.

The autoimmunity of Parkinson’s disease? | The Science of Parkinson's disease

Thanks jefferyn.

Apart from a few minor quibbles I think that the article explains some hard concepts in immunology clearly and the diagrams certainly help.