Adaptive Immune Response in Narcolepsy Type 1

Narcolepsy — a chronic neurological disorder — affects the brain’s capability in controlling the sleep-wake cycles. People affected with narcolepsy might feel rested after waking up, but then feel very sleepy throughout the day. Most people with narcolepsy also experience interrupted and uneven sleep that can involve waking up repeatedly during the night.

There are two main types of narcolepsy: type 1 and type 2. Narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) is based on the patient either having low levels of a brain hormone — hypocretin — or having excessive daytime sleepiness on a special nap test and reporting cataplexy (a brain disorder where there is a temporary and sudden loss of brain muscle tone and control).

People with narcolepsy type 2 experience extreme daytime sleepiness but usually don’t experience muscle weakness activated by emotions. These patients usually have lighter symptoms and normal levels of hypocretin.

In this webinar, the featured speaker will share and discuss the following:

• An overview of adaptive immune response in narcolepsy
• Determining peptide binding affinity to human leukocyte antigen (HLA)
• Isolating antigen-HLA restricted CD4+ T cells using tetramer HLA
• Single-cell RNA sequencing of CD4+ T cells and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)

Join this webinar to gain insights on the overview of the adaptive immune response in narcolepsy type 1.

Speaker

Dr. Guo Luo, Immunologist and Instructor, Stanford University School of Medicine

Dr. Guo Luo is an instructor at Stanford University School of Medicine and an immunologist with a special interest in T cell immunology and brain disorders. His projects involve isolating and characterizing T cells reactive to autoantigens and flu antigens in neurological disorders using state-of-the-art technologies including DNA barcoded tetramers/dextramers, next-generation single-cell sequencing and modeling of T cell receptors (TCRs).

Most of his past work is applied to narcolepsy, an autoimmune disease associated with human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ0602, that is triggered by the flu and involves flu-hypocretin/orexin cross-reactive CD4⁺ T cells.

With well-established technologies in narcolepsy, one of his current works focuses on two neurodegenerative disorders, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases (AD and PD). He investigates reactive epitopes binding to HLA alleles, detects and sorts antigen-specific T cells, characterizes T cell receptors (TCRs) functionally and applies single-cell sequencing. His research aims to understand how T cell cross-reactivity occurs in the context of neuroimmune disorders targeting neurons and find effective treatment.

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