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Narcolepsy confirmed as autoimmune disease
Results also partly explain why the 2009 swine flu virus, and a vaccine against it, led to spikes in the sleep disorder.
Ed Yong
Nature
18 December 2013
http://www.nature.com/news/narcolepsy-confirmed-as-autoimmune-disease-1.14413?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20131224
As the H1N1 swine flu pandemic swept the world in 2009, China saw a spike in cases of narcolepsy — a mysterious disorder that involves sudden, uncontrollable sleepiness. Meanwhile, in Europe, around 1 in 15,000 children who were given Pandemrix — a now-defunct flu vaccine that contained fragments of the pandemic virus — also developed narcolepsy, a chronic disease.
The Study:
CD4+ T Cell Autoimmunity to Hypocretin/Orexin and Cross-Reactivity to a 2009 H1N1 Influenza A Epitope in Narcolepsy.
De la Herrán-Arita AK, Kornum BR, Mahlios J, Jiang W, Lin L, Hou T, Macaubas C, Einen M, Plazzi G, Crowe C, Newell EW, Davis MM, Mellins ED, Mignot E.
Sci Transl Med. 2013 Dec 18;5(216):216ra176.
doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3007762
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/5/216/216ra176
Abstract
Narcolepsy, a disorder strongly associated with human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQA1*01:02/DQB1*06:02 (DQ0602), is characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, and rapid eye movement sleep abnormalities. It is caused by the loss of ~70,000 posterior hypothalamic neurons that produce the wake-promoting neuropeptide hypocretin (HCRT) (orexin). We identified two DQ0602-binding HCRT epitopes, HCRT56-68 and HCRT87-99, that activated a subpopulation of CD4(+) T cells in narcolepsy patients but not in DQ0602-positive healthy control subjects. Because of the established association of narcolepsy with the 2009 H1N1 influenza A strain (pH1N1), we administered a seasonal influenza vaccine (containing pH1N1) to patients with narcolepsy and found an increased frequency of circulating HCRT56-68- and HCRT87-99-reactive T cells. We also identified a hemagglutinin (HA) pHA1 epitope specific to the 2009 H1N1 strain, pHA1275-287, with homology to HCRT56-68 and HCRT87-99. In vitro stimulation of narcolepsy CD4(+) T cells with pH1N1 proteins or pHA1275-287 increased the frequency of HCRT56-68- and HCRT87-99-reactive T cells. Our data indicate the presence of CD4(+) T cells that are reactive to HCRT in narcolepsy patients and possible molecular mimicry between HCRT and a similar epitope in influenza pH1N1, pHA1275-287.