Experimental study of serum substantia nigra neuron autoantibody and its effect in Parkinson disease patients.

To investigate the serum substantia nigra neuron autoantibody and its effect in the patients with Parkinson disease (PD), substantia nigra slices and a rat model of injection of serum from PD patients in unilateral side substantia nigra were applied. The results showed that the positive rate of substantia nigra neuron autoantibody in PD patients was significantly higher than in the healthy control group (36.67% vs 6.67%, P < 0.01), but no significant difference was found between PD group and myasthenia gravis (MG) group (26.67%, P > 0.05). The sera from PD patients positive for substantia nigra neuron autoantibody could decrease the number of the dopaminergic neurons more seriously than those from MG and the healthy once respectively (both P < 0.01). The results suggested that the immunological mechanism might partly play a role in the development of PD.