Does autoreactivity have a role in narcolepsy?

摘要

In our recent Review of the sleep disorder narcolepsy, we included the hypothesis that type 1 narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease. As part of this discussion, we identified hypocretin as a possible target of an autoimmune attack leading to narcolepsy. At the time of writing, this idea was supported by data from a report by De la Herran-Arita and colleagues,2 which has since been retracted. The retraction was based on an inability of the researchers to reproduce their finding of T-cell reactivity towards hypocretin and H1N1 antigenic epitopes.2 In view of this retraction, no direct evidence exists of autoreactive T cells playing a part in the pathophysiology of narcolepsy.