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. 2020 Dec 17;9(12):e1229. doi: 10.1002/cti2.1229

Figure 1.

Figure 1

T cells in patients with movement and psychiatric disorders recognised dopamine‐2 receptor (D2R) at three distinct regions. D2R peptide pools that elicited T‐cell activation in patients with movement and psychiatric disorders of an autoimmune (AI) and neurodevelopmental (ND) aetiology were determined by assessing the co‐expression of CD25 and CD134 on CD4+ T cells using the CD25/CD134 assay. (a) Patient whole blood (n = 24) was stimulated with the 10 master pools of D2R peptides and eight patients (numbered orange diamonds) exhibited activation against at least one of three pools: pool 4, pool 5 and pool 10. Positive patients were defined as a frequency of CD25+CD134+CD4+ T cells above the threshold (dashed line; mean + 3SD of controls (n = 16)) for each peptide pool. Samples were tested once soon after their collection to preserve sample integrity. (b) The percentage of total CD3+CD4+ T cells in controls and patients was not significantly (ns) different (Mann–Whitney U‐tests, P = 0.86; error bars = mean ± SD). (c) Activation of antigen‐specific T cells in response to the recall antigen tetanus toxoid (TT) was tested concurrently to the activation of D2R‐specific T cells. The frequency of D2R‐specific T cells in patients was comparable to the frequency of TT‐specific T cells in controls, in patients with D2R‐specific T cells (orange diamonds) and in patients without D2R‐specific T cells (Kruskal–Wallis tests, P = 0.46; whiskers = minimum to maximum). (d) 6/8 D2R‐specific T‐cell‐positive patients had an ND aetiology, and 2/8 D2R‐specific T‐cell‐positive patients had an AI aetiology. (e) The peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 7/8 positive patients were re‐assessed against sub‐pool peptide of pools 4, 5 and 10. Due to sample limitation, samples were tested once, while ensuring all relevant sub‐pools were tested. Of the total activated D2R‐specific T cells, there was preferential activation by pool 4A (3/3), pool 5B (2/2) and pool 10B (2/3). (f) These three immunogenic sub‐pools corresponded to three discrete regions of thehuman D2R (green = pool 4A; blue = pool 5B; purple = pool 10B).