Autoimmunity: A new clue to sleepiness.

The article cites the research "CD4+ T cell autoimmunity to hypocretin/orexin and cross-reactivity to a 2009 H1N1 influenza A epitope in narcolepsy." It states that narcolepsy is a chronic disease caused by lack of orexin, encoded by hypocretin neuropeptide precursor (HCRT), due to a loss of the hypothalamic neurons. The authors describe the ability of orexin epitopes to bind DQ0602 and identified two orexin epitopes HCRT_56-68 and HCRT_87-99 with strong binding to DQ0602.