Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative disease of the basal ganglia. Patients with PD treated with levodopa had been reported to show positive Coombs tests 20 years ago. Immunological abnormalities including the occurrence of autoantibodies against 5-100 protein, neuron-specific enolase, axonal neurofilaments or sympathetic ganglia, reduced mitogen responses and diminished number of CD 4 positive cells have been observed. PD patients tend to be more tolerant to common cold or cancer.
In this study, we examined lymphocyte subsets, natural killer (NK) activity and anti-body-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) in four patients with juvenile parkinsonism treated with levodopa for 10 years. The percentage of Leu 7 or Leu 11 positive cells were normal but HLA-DR positive cells increased slightly. Two patients showed decreased NK activity and all four patients showed reduced ADCC activity that might be dependent to levodopa therapy.
The effector cells of ADCC against Raji cell or Chang liver cell, K cells might be heterogenous since there is no correlation between ADCC activity against Raji cell and Chang liver cell. Reduced cytotoxicity in PD patients suggest that there will be the other reasons showing the tolerance against common cold or cancer.
