Fig. 1: α-Syn-specific T cell responses in a longitudinal case study of PD.

a Total magnitude of response expressed as total SFC (sum of IFNγ, IL-5, and IL-10 responses) per 10⁶ cultured PBMC against a pool of α-syn peptides (furthest to the right) and all individual α-syn peptides included in the pool. Representative data from PBMC collected in 2006. b–d After eliminating non-lymphocytes and doublet cells by forward and side-scatter, and dead cells by Live/Dead stain, CD3⁺ T cells were gated based on their CD4 and CD8 expression (CD8⁺, CD8⁺CD4⁺, CD4⁺, CD8⁻CD4⁻), and other populations as indicated; CD3⁻CD19⁻ and CD19⁺ (Supplementary Fig. 5), percentage cytokine of live cells from each of these were plotted. b IFNγ (n = 6), c IL-4 (n  =  6), and d IL-10 (n = 3). Each point represents a sample collected between 1998 and 2015 (1998, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2013, and 2015); median ± interquartile range is indicated. e Total magnitude of response expressed as total SFC (sum of IFNγ, IL-5, and IL-10 responses) per 10⁶ cultured PBMC against a pool of α-syn peptides or PHA. The time period spans 1998 (pre-2001) to 2018. Median ± interquartile range is indicative of individual experimental replicates. Pre- March-01 n = 10, Oct-05 n = 4, Jul-06 n = 3, Mar-07 n = 9, Apr-07 n = 3, May-07 n = 5, Oct-07 n = 1, Jan-13 n = 4, Aug-15 n = 12, and May-18 n = 2. f Total magnitude of response divided into pre- (1998–2006) (n = 17) and (2007–2008) (n = 18), which reflects the period this individual experienced shingles) and post- (2009–2018) (n = 18) PD onset/diagnosis for α-syn-specific responses (left) and PHA (right). Each point represents an individual independent experimental replicate; the median ± interquartile range is indicated. Two-tailed Mann–Whitney test. The data are displayed on a logarithmic scale.