Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, affect millions of people and pose major personal and socioeconomic burdens. The causes of neurodegeneration are mostly unknown, although current efforts have described an autoimmune aspect to these diseases. Here we discuss recent findings that shed light on the involvement of the adaptive immune system in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, and provide a model and outlook for further investigation of T cell responses in neurodegenerative disease. We focus on the identification of T cell epitopes from proteins involved in disease pathogenesis and describe the identification of α-synuclein-specific epitopes in Parkinson's disease which provided a crucial link between disease susceptibility and T cell recognition.

中文翻译：

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适应性免疫系统在帕金森氏症和阿尔茨海默氏病中的作用。

帕金森氏症和阿尔茨海默氏症等神经退行性疾病影响数百万人，并给个人和社会经济造成重大负担。尽管目前的研究已经描述了这些疾病的自身免疫方面，但神经变性的原因仍是未知的。在这里，我们讨论了最近的发现，这些发现揭示了帕金森氏病和阿尔茨海默氏病中适应性免疫系统的参与，并为进一步研究神经退行性疾病中T细胞反应提供了模型和前景。我们着重于从涉及疾病发病机理的蛋白质中鉴定T细胞表位，并描述帕金森氏病中α-突触核蛋白特异性表位的鉴定，这为疾病易感性与T细胞识别之间的关键联系提供了条件。