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Autoimmunity

A new clue to sleepiness

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 14, pages 66–67 (2014)Cite this article

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Narcolepsy is a chronic disorder caused by lack of orexin (encoded by hypocretin neuropeptide precursor (HCRT)) signalling due to a loss of the hypothalamic neurons that normally produce this peptide. The disease has been suspected to have an autoimmune origin based on the strong genetic association with the HLA molecule DQ0602; 98% of patients with narcolepsy have this HLA subtype compared with 25% of the general population. However, an autoimmune response in narcolepsy has not been previously demonstrated.

only the twin with narcolepsy had CD4+ T cells specific for the two orexin epitopes

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References

  1. De la Herrán-Arita, A. K. et al. CD4+ T cell autoimmunity to hypocretin/orexin and cross-reactivity to a 2009 H1N1 influenza A epitope in narcolepsy. Sci. Transl. Med. 5, 216ra176 (2013)

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  1. Elisabeth Kugelberg
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Kugelberg, E. A new clue to sleepiness. Nat Rev Immunol 14, 66–67 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri3609

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