Parkinson’s disease tagged posts

Highlights •Lack of neuronal IFN-β-IFNAR signaling causes brain Lewy body accumulation •IFN-β deficiency causes late-stage autophagy block and thereby α-synuclein aggregation •IFN-β promotes neuronal autophagy and α-synuclein clearance •Ifnb gene therapy prevents dopaminergic neuron loss in a familial PD model

Non-inheritable PD may be caused by functional changes in the immune regulating gene Interferon-beta. Treatment with Interferon-beta-gene therapy successfully prevented neuronal death and disease effects in an experimental model of PD.

7-10 million people worldwide are living with PD. More than half of PD patients develop progressive disease showing signs of dementia similar to Alzheimer’s disease...

Smart Immune Cells teach Neurons damaged by Parkinson’s to Heal themselves

As a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease, scientists have created smarter immune cells that produce and deliver a healing protein to the brain while also teaching neurons to begin making the protein for themselves.

The researchers, led by A/Prof Elena Batrakova at UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery, genetically modified macrophages to produce glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor, or GDNF, and deliver it to the brain. Glial cells provide support and protection for nerve cells throughout the brain and body, and GDNF can heal and stimulate the growth of damaged neurons.

“Currently, there are no treatments that can halt or reverse the course of Parkinson’s disease...

Two gene-regulating molecules have been found to have a protective effect in the set of neurons most affected by the disease, and when their activity wanes, disease sets in. This discovery suggests new avenues by which the disease might be prevented or treated.

METHOD: They used genetically engineering mice to capture the genetic messages being translated into proteins in a specific population of cells. They then mapped the interactions of regulator genes with their target genes in the mouse brain, and used this new tool to interpret the changes they documented between normal mice and those suffering from Parkinson’s-like degeneration.

This led them to 2 molecules: proteins SATB1 and ZDHHC2, which are more abundant in the dopaminergic neurons in the SNpc (Substantia Nigra pars compac...

Scientists from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) and McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the United States have found that existing anti-malaria drugs could be a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease.

Currently, there is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, which affects 10 million people worldwide. Prof Kwang-Soo Kim from McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School and A/Prof Yoon Ho Sup from NTU’s School of Biological Sciences, showed that by activating Nurr1, a class of proteins found in the brain, it protects the brain’s ability to generate dopamine neurons, for dopamine products for motor control and movement of muscles in the body.

In lab tests, the scientists found that by activating Nurr1, the rats which had Parkinson’s disease appeared to...