Scientists Discover New Autoimmune Disease Developed By Testicular Cancer
At the University of California, San Francisco, scientists discovered that testicular cancer can cause a neurodegenerative disease. This happens because it damages the immune system which directly affects the brain.
Testicular cancer causes autoimmune disease, for them scientists resort to the staining pattern, the test is performed on the brain tissue of a mouse. Small samples are inserted that are later seen under the microscope.
This is how they detect autoimmune or neurodegenerative diseases. The research is not overnight, this has a 20-year study, scientists identify the staining pattern and this part of testicular cancer.
Faced with this pattern, the scientists set out to investigate which is the antibody that causes neurodegenerative disease. To do this, they used new technology capable of tracking 700,000 antibody targets against all known human proteins.
At the time of analyzing the cerebrospinal fluid of the patient with testicular cancer, autoantibodies that attack a protein called KLHL11 were identified. The surprising thing about this is that this protein is found in the testes and in parts of the brain.
How does the damage happen in the brain? Well, the body, which is an almost perfect system to eradicate any damage caused by a protein of this type, what it does is eliminate it from the testicles, but as it travels to the brain, the antibodies, they follow her and when they arrive they cause neurological problems.
Dr. Divyanshu Dubey, a researcher affiliated with the Mayo Clinic Center for Multiple Sclerosis and Autoimmune Neurology and a co-author of the study explains the following:
“Early diagnosis is extremely important. If we diagnose patients early, we can start them on immunosuppressive drugs.
The sooner we can prevent this damage from occurring, the sooner we can stop the progression of the disease and increase the chances of clinical improvement in the life of the patient ”.
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