How Parkinson's Spreads From Cell to Cell
This is the Medscape Neurology Minute. I am Dr Alan Jacobs. An international, interdisciplinary group of researchers, centered at the Clinical Institute of Neurology in Vienna, has demonstrated how Parkinson disease can spread from cell to cell in the human brain. They accomplished this by using an antibody developed in collaboration with a German biotech firm; it is the first to distinguish between the normal and the disease-associated forms of alpha-synuclein. With the antibody the researchers found that human nerve cells take a pathologic alpha-synuclein and transfer the disease from one cell to the next in a process akin to an infection. The investigators observed that such a mechanism of spread from cell to cell can serve as a point of therapeutic intervention by blocking the transfer mechanism. In a related study, they also showed that the new antibody can be used to detect disease-associated alpha-synuclein in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with synucleinopathies, allowing for early diagnosis of dementias owing to parkinsonian-related diseases. This has been the Medscape Neurology Minute. I am Dr Alan Jacobs.
Abstract
This is the Medscape Neurology Minute. I am Dr Alan Jacobs. An international, interdisciplinary group of researchers, centered at the Clinical Institute of Neurology in Vienna, has demonstrated how Parkinson disease can spread from cell to cell in the human brain. They accomplished this by using an antibody developed in collaboration with a German biotech firm; it is the first to distinguish between the normal and the disease-associated forms of alpha-synuclein. With the antibody the researchers found that human nerve cells take a pathologic alpha-synuclein and transfer the disease from one cell to the next in a process akin to an infection. The investigators observed that such a mechanism of spread from cell to cell can serve as a point of therapeutic intervention by blocking the transfer mechanism. In a related study, they also showed that the new antibody can be used to detect disease-associated alpha-synuclein in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with synucleinopathies, allowing for early diagnosis of dementias owing to parkinsonian-related diseases. This has been the Medscape Neurology Minute. I am Dr Alan Jacobs.
Abstract
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