Participation of perforin in mediating dopaminergic neuron loss in MPTP-induced Parkinson's disease in mice.

Both resident innate and peripheral immune aberrations have been demonstrated to influence Parkinson's disease (PD) progression. However, it is still enigmatic how and which immune components are lethal to the dopaminergic neuron in PD. We now show that levels of perforin, a pore-forming protein expressed in cytotoxic immune cells, was significantly increased in the serum of wild-type mice 4 weeks after injection of MPTP, a toxin used to induce PD-like symptoms. We demonstrate that perforin-deficiency attenuated the acute striatal dopamine reduction by 33%, ablated microglia activation 3 days post MPTP-injection; and retarded dopaminergic neuron death 4 weeks post MPTP-injection. Our study suggests that perforin plays a role in dopaminergic neuron loss in PD.