A paper has been published on Parkinson’s disease which showed differences in the structural makeup of proteins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) between Parkinson’s patients and healthy controls. These structural improvements may make it possible to differentiate new disease subgroups in a novel way, opening the door to new PD treatments.
PD is a neurodegenerative condition that causes loss of motor skills and cognitive decline. The World Health Organization announced in 2022 that the prevalence of PD, the most common movement condition, has doubled in the past 25 years. Since PD affects 0.9% of the global population over the age of 60, it is frequently seen as a sign of an aging society.
The current medications for Parkinson’s disease (PD) cater to its symptoms and not the actual disease itself indicating that there is no cure for the disease currently. Sinemet is considered a cure for PD, although it only normalizes the dopamine levels in the body and works only on people with PD Lewy disorders. This disorder is somehow connected to people having PD-related dementia.
Bio and pharmaceutical companies are investing in research to treat patients who have Lewy body-related PD. This accounts for 88% of the total patients leaving the remaining 12% with fewer medication options according to the International Parkinson Disorder Society.
The article published by Nature magazine highlights the new positive development of 76 proteins that varied structurally in PD and fit people. A treatment option was generated through this development, which can cure the remaining 12% of PD patients who have a different type of Parkinson’s disease other than Lewy.
The chair of neuromodulation at the University of Toronto Dr. Alfonso stated:
“There is a lot of focus on finding out which biomarkers are effective in curing the disease so that they can be populated multiple times and on a wider scale. Because of this increased focus, the investment in research and development of treatment to achieve the goal has increased over the years”.
The trend of the genes leading to Parkinson’s disease has been identified. Fasano recommends using this as a first step to identify the effect of the gene and then develop a medication to cater to the growing demand. As per Global Data, three medications are in their clinical trial stages and one of them is being considered for PD cure.
The recent Nature paper described a study that examined the CSF of 52 people with Parkinson’s disease and 51 healthy people using restricted proteolysis-mass spectrometry. Each participant provided brain tissue samples, which the researchers used to compare the protein architectures of healthy and PD participants. The research group discovered 64 different proteins that were the source of 117 extremely varied peptides. The findings also demonstrated that, compared to non-variable sections, variable regions were more disordered. Two of the 76 structurally changed proteins found in the CSF of PD patients correspond to genes that are connected to the disease.
These results demonstrated that human protein structural changes could differentiate between people with PD and healthy people. Additionally, the findings accurately predicted 91% of the alpha-synuclein levels within a particular person. This idea has to be validated in additional independent cohorts and tested for specificity to Parkinson’s disease (PD) as opposed to other neurodegenerative diseases before it can be applied to clinical research. The 11% of people as mentioned before may be represented by a new biomarker identified by these findings, and they may also be useful for research into other PD subtypes and late-stage PD.
