Elsevier

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 165, Issues 1–2, 3 January 1994, Pages 208-210
Neuroscience Letters

Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) increases both in the brain and in the cerebrospinal fluid from parkinsonian patients

https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3940(94)90746-3Get rights and content

Abstract

Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), a glial-cell-related factor, was measured for the first time in the brain (striatum) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from control and parkinsonian patients by a sensitive sandwich enzyme immunoassay. The concentrations of TNF-α in the brain and CSF were significantly higher in parkinsonian patients than those in controls. Since TNF-α is an important signal transducer of the immune system with cytotoxic and stimulator properties, these results suggest that an immune response may occur in the nigrostriatal dopaminergic regions in Parkinson's disease and that TNF-α may be related, at least in part, to the neuronal degeneration.

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