Labs chief Peter Kim to join Department of Biochemistry

In genetically susceptible people, narcolepsy can sometimes be triggered by a similarity between a region of a protein called hypocretin and a portion of a protein from the pandemic H1N1 virus, according to a new study by researchers at the School of Medicine. The study provides some of the most compelling cellular and molecular evidence to date for a scientific concept known as “molecular mimicry.” Mimicry is the idea that the normal immune response to a pathogen, in this case the pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, can trigger autoimmunity — in which the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy components of the body — because of similarity between a pathogen protein and a human protein. In a 2009 study, Stanford researchers reported genetic evidence supporting the idea that narcolepsy, a debilitating disorder characterized by sudden, uncontrollable sleepiness and muscle weakness, occurs because the body’s immune system mistakenly destroys brain cells that make a “wakefulness” protein: hypocretin. The new study confirms that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease. “The relationship between H1N1 infection, vaccination and narcolepsy gave us some very interesting insight into possible causes of the condition,” said Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. “In particular, it strongly suggested to us that T cells of the immune system primed to at tack H1N1 H1N1-triggered narcolepsy may stem from ‘molecular mimicry’