Scientists from CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology here have developed a predictive marker that helps in identifying Parkinson’s disease at an early stage and could prevent its progression through therapeutics.
In a bid to find a prognostic marker, the scientists were trying to understand the disease progression. In the process, they observed that the appearance of new isoforms (a different form of the same protein) of alpha synuclein protein in the brain and their expression have been correlated with the onset of the disease and its progression, Principal Scientist at IICT’s Centre for Chemical Biology Shasi Vardhan Kalivendi said on Wednesday.
Loss of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is associated with motor coordination, has been attributed to be one of the main reasons for developing PD. Other factors that precipitate the disease include age-related decrease in mitochondria (power house of a cell) capacity leading to oxidative stress and aggregation of few toxic proteins. Mitochondria-targeted anti-oxidant drug to combat the disease worked successfully in animal models but failed in human clinical trials, Dr. Shasi said. This was basically because nearly 50 per cent of the neurons (brain cells) that synthesise dopamine become dead by the time symptoms of PD appear. He said neurons normally do not re-grow unlike other cells in the body and pose a huge challenge.
“If the disease is detected at an early stage when few neuron cells are dead, there is a chance of therapeutics working in preventing its progression”, he added.
