Evidence for Systemic Immune System Alterations in Sporadic Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Sals)
Journal of Neuroimmunology 159 (2005) 215–224 www.elsevier.com/locate/jneuroim Evidence for systemic immune system alterations in sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (sALS) Rongzhen Zhanga, Ron Gascona, Robert G. Millerb, Deborah F. Gelinasb, Jason Massb, Ken Hadlockc, Xia Jinc, Jeremy Reisa, Amy Narvaeza, Michael S. McGratha,* aUniversity of California, San Francisco, San Francisco General Hospital, 995 Potrero Avenue, Building 80, Ward 84, Box 0874, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA bCalifornia Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, CA 94115, USA cPathologica LLC, Burlingame, CA 94010, USA Received 12 February 2004; received in revised form 7 September 2004; accepted 12 October 2004 Abstract Sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (sALS) is a progressive neuroinflammatory disease of spinal cord motor neurons of unclear etiology. Blood from 38 patients with sALS, 28 aged-match controls, and 25 Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients were evaluated and activated monocyte/macrophages were observed in all patients with sALS and AD; the degree of activation was directly related to the rate of sALS disease progression. Other parameters of T-cell activation and immune globulin levels showed similar disease associated changes. These data are consistent with a disease model previously suggested for AD, wherein systemic immunologic activation plays an active role in sALS. D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); Alzheimer’s disease (AD); Motor neuron disease; Immune activation; Monocyte/macrophage 1. Introduction 1995; Fray et al., 1998), and autoimmunity (Appel et al., 1993). In addition, several recent studies have suggested Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating that the immune system may be actively involved in the neurological disease characterized by gradual degeneration disease process of ALS, with observations of activated of spinal cord motor neuron cells leading to progressive microglia, IgG deposits, and dysregulation of cytokine weakness, paralysis of muscle and death.
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