G. Defazio et al., PARKINSONIAN SERUM CARRIES COMPLEMENT-DEPENDENT TOXICITY FOR RAT MESENCEPHALIC DOPAMINERGIC-NEURONS IN CULTURE, Brain research, 633(1-2), 1994, pp. 206-212
The presence of antibodies recognizing specific epitopes of dopaminerg
ic neurons in serum of patients suffering of Parkinson's Disease (PD)
as well as their capability to induce neuronal damage was investigated
utilizing serum-free dissociated mesencephalic-striatal co-cultures.
High affinity dopamine (DA) and GABA uptakes were assessed as specific
, functional markers of dopaminergic and GABAergic cell viability, res
pectively. Heat-inactivated serum samples from 18 and 13 patients suff
ering from idiopathic and vascular parkinsonism, respectively and from
18 neurologic controls, were added to co-cultures on day 4 in vitro.
Twenty four hours later, reconstituted rabbit complement was added for
60 min and uptake parameters as well as immunocytochemical staining f
or tyroxyne hydroxylase (TH)-containing cells were subsequently assess
ed. DA, but not GABA, uptake was significantly decreased only when com
plement was added to cultures containing serum samples from 14 out of
18 patients with idiopathic parkinsonism and 3 out of 13 patients with
vascular parkinsonism (Fisher test, P <0.01). Complement addition to
cultures containing serum samples from seropositive parkinsonian patie
nts significantly reduced immunocytochemical staining of TH-containing
cells. Seropositive and seronegative patients did not differ in demog
raphic and clinical features. These results suggest that a complement-
dependent humoral immune response occurs mainly in idiopathic parkinso
nian patients, but its clinical relevance remains to be established.