Inflammation and Adaptive Immunity in Parkinson’s Disease

The immune system is designed to protect the host from infection and injury. However, when an adaptive immune response continues unchecked in the brain, the proinflammatory innate microglial response leads to the accumulation of neurotoxins and eventual neurodegenera-tion. What drives such responses are misfolded and nitrated proteins. Indeed, the antigen in Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an aberrant self-protein, although the adaptive immune responses are remarkably similar in a range of diseases. Ingress of lymphocytes and chronic activation of glial cells directlyaffect neurodegeneration.With this understanding, new therapies aimed at modulating the immune system’s response during PD could lead to decreased neuronal loss and improved clinical outcomes for disease. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second mostcommon neurodegenerative disorder affect-ing the elderly. Pathologically, the disease is characterized by the cytoplasmic accumulation of proteinaceous aggregates called Lewy bodies (LBs), which are mainly comprised of a-syn-uclein (a-syn) and ubiquitin (Spillantini et al