Nat Genet: Add hammer evidence! Parkinson's disease or really starts in the gut!

May 12, 2020/PRNewswire
BIOON/Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the University of North Carolina in the United States have mapped the types of cells behind various brain diseasesThe findings, published in the journal NatureGenetics, provide a roadmap for the development of new treatments for neurological and mental illnessAn interesting finding is that cells from the intestinal nervous system are linked to Parkinson's disease, suggesting that Parkinson's disease may start in the intestinesnervous system consists of hundreds of different cells that function differentlyUnderstanding the types of cells affected in each disease is critical to help understand the causes of the disease and ultimately develop new treatmentsPicture Source:NatGenet (2020)researchers have now combined mouse gene expression research with humangeneticto systematically map cell types for a variety of brain diseases, includingParkinson's disease, a neurodegenerative disease that causes cognitive and motor symptoms due to cell loss of dopamine in specific areas of the brainProfessor Patrick Sullivan, professor of medical epidemiology and biostatistics at theKarolinska School of Medicine and a professor of clinical studies at the University of North Carolina At Yeargan and one of the lead authors of the study, said: "As expected, we found that dopamine neurons are associated withParkinson's disease Even more surprisingly, we found that intestinal neurons also appear to play an important role in the barriers that support the hypothesis that Parkinson's disease began in the intestines "
When researchers analyzed differences in brain tissue from healthy individuals and people at different stages of Parkinson's disease, they made another unexpected discovery A type of brain-supporting cell called less protrusive glial cells is found to be affected at an early stage, suggesting that they play a key role in the early stages of the disease "The fact that animal studies point to fewer glial cells, and we also demonstrate that these cells in patients are also affected, suggesting that the results may be clinically significant," said study leader Jens Hjerling-Leffler, a team leader in the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at the karolinska School of Medicine in "
fewer glial cells appear to be affected before dopamine neurons are lost "this makes them an attractive target for the treatment of Parkinson's disease," said Julien Bryois, a researcher in the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at karolinska College and one of the study's first authors (biovalleybioon.com) References: Parkinson's scarmayastartinthegut
Bryois, J., Skene, N.G., Hansen, T.F.etal.
Genetically ofcelledyn yn dystoind dystoineetythiology of Parkinson's NatGenet (2020) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-020-0610-9