Are We Close to Parkinson’s Disease Cure?

Parkinson’s disease (PD) may soon be cured by the new drug formulation as per a study at the University of Bath, UK, published in Journal of Molecular Biology.

PD is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that primarily affects movement due to loss of nerve cells—neurons that produce a chemical messenger (neurotransmitter) in the brain called dopamine (black substance).

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‘Parkinson's disease (PD) may soon be cured by the new drug formulation that helps reduce Parkinson's pathology—abnormal accumulation of Lewy bodies. ’

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The typical characteristic of PD is accumulation of abnormally misfolded protein — alpha-synuclein (αS) known as Lewy bodies — that triggers dopamine loss.

"A lot of work still needs to happen, but this molecule has the potential to be a pre-cursor to a drug. Today there are only medicines to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s—we hope to develop a drug that can return people to good health even before symptoms develop," says Prof. Jody Mason, who led the research from the department of biology and biochemistry at University of Bath.

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There have been several efforts to target and ’detoxify’ αS-induced neurodegeneration and potentially find a cure for PD.

Recently, the study team has found that a new version of a peptide 4554W—4654W(N6A) has been proven to significantly reduce the αS misfolding, aggregation, and toxicity. However, further experiments are required to extract the benefits of the molecule as a complete cure for PD.

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“The effectiveness of the 4654W(N6A) peptide on alpha synuclein aggregation and cell survival in cultures is very exciting, as it highlights that we now know where to target on the alpha synuclein protein to suppress its toxicity. Not only will this research lead to the development of new treatments to prevent the disease, but it is also uncovering fundamental mechanisms of the disease itself, furthering our understanding of why the protein misfolds in the first place,” says Dr. Richard Meade, the lead author of the study.

Source-Medindia