Copper dyshomoeostasis in Parkinson's disease: implications for pathogenesis and indications for novel therapeutics

2016 ◽  
Vol 130 (8) ◽  
pp. 565-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine M. Davies ◽  
Julian F.B. Mercer ◽  
Nicholas Chen ◽  
Kay L. Double

Copper is a biometal essential for normal brain development and function, thus copper deficiency or excess results in central nervous system disease. Well-characterized disorders of disrupted copper homoeostasis with neuronal degeneration include Menkes disease and Wilson's disease but a large body of evidence also implicates disrupted copper pathways in other neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Huntington's disease and prion diseases. In this short review we critically evaluate the data regarding changes in systemic and brain copper levels in Parkinson's disease, where alterations in brain copper are associated with regional neuronal cell death and disease pathology. We review copper regulating mechanisms in the human brain and the effects of dysfunction within these systems. We then examine the evidence for a role for copper in pathogenic processes in Parkinson's disease and consider reports of diverse copper-modulating strategies in in vitro and in vivo models of this disorder. Copper-modulating therapies are currently advancing through clinical trials for Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease and may also hold promise as disease modifying agents in Parkinson's disease.

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iván Carrera ◽  
Ramón Cacabelos

The research progress of understanding the etiology and pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD) has yet lead to the development of some clinical approaches intended to treat cognitive and behavioral symptoms, such as memory and perception disorders. Despite the major advances in different genetic causes and risk factors for PD, which share common pathways to cell dysfunction and death, there is not yet a complete model of PD that can be used to accurately predict the effect of drugs on disease progression. Clinical trials are also important to test any novel neuro-protective agent, and recently there have been great advances in the use of anti-inflammatory drugs and plant flavonoid antioxidants to protect against specific neuronal degeneration and its interference with lipid and cholesterol metabolism. The increasing knowledge of the molecular events underlying the degenerative process of PD has stimulated research to identify natural compounds capable of halting or slowing the progress of neural deterioration. Polyphenols and flavonoids, which play a neuroprotective role in a wide array of in vitro and in vivo models of neurological disorders, emerged from among the multi-target bio-agents found mainly in plants and microorganisms. This review presents a detailed overview of the multimodal activities of neuroprotective bio-agents tested so far, emphasizing their neurorescue/neuroregenerative activity. The brain-penetrating property of bioagents may make these compounds an important class of natural drugs for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Although there are numerous studies demonstrating beneficial effects in the laboratory by identifying critical molecular targets, the clinical efficacy of these neuroprotective treatments remains to be proven accurately.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 361
Author(s):  
Gabriel Gonzalez ◽  
Jiří Grúz ◽  
Cosimo Walter D’Acunto ◽  
Petr Kaňovský ◽  
Miroslav Strnad

Cytokinins are adenine-based phytohormones that regulate key processes in plants, such as cell division and differentiation, root and shoot growth, apical dominance, branching, and seed germination. In preliminary studies, they have also shown protective activities against human neurodegenerative diseases. To extend knowledge of the protection (protective activity) they offer, we investigated activities of natural cytokinins against salsolinol (SAL)-induced toxicity (a Parkinson’s disease model) and glutamate (Glu)-induced death of neuron-like dopaminergic SH-SY5Y cells. We found that kinetin-3-glucoside, cis-zeatin riboside, and N6-isopentenyladenosine were active in the SAL-induced PD model. In addition, trans-, cis-zeatin, and kinetin along with the iron chelator deferoxamine (DFO) and the necroptosis inhibitor necrostatin 1 (NEC-1) significantly reduced cell death rates in the Glu-induced model. Lactate dehydrogenase assays revealed that the cytokinins provided lower neuroprotective activity than DFO and NEC-1. Moreover, they reduced apoptotic caspase-3/7 activities less strongly than DFO. However, the cytokinins had very similar effects to DFO and NEC-1 on superoxide radical production. Overall, they showed protective activity in the SAL-induced model of parkinsonian neuronal cell death and Glu-induced model of oxidative damage mainly by reduction of oxidative stress.


Author(s):  
Maarten C Hardenberg ◽  
Tessa Sinnige ◽  
Sam Casford ◽  
Samuel Dada ◽  
Chetan Poudel ◽  
...  

Abstract Misfolded α-synuclein is a major component of Lewy bodies, which are a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease. A large body of evidence shows that α-synuclein can aggregate into amyloid fibrils, but the relationship between α-synuclein self-assembly and Lewy body formation remains unclear. Here we show, both in vitro and in a Caenorhabditis elegans model of Parkinson’s disease, that α-synuclein undergoes liquid‒liquid phase separation by forming a liquid droplet state, which converts into an amyloid-rich hydrogel with Lewy-body-like properties. This maturation process towards the amyloid state is delayed in the presence of model synaptic vesicles in vitro. Taken together, these results suggest that the formation of Lewy bodies may be linked to the arrested maturation of α-synuclein condensates in the presence of lipids and other cellular components.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eiji Inoue ◽  
Takahiro Suzuki ◽  
Yasuharu Shimizu ◽  
Keiichi Sudo ◽  
Haruhisa Kawasaki ◽  
...  

AbstractParkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder with motor symptoms linked to the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain. α-Synuclein is an aggregation-prone neural protein that plays a role in the pathogenesis of PD. In our previous paper, we found that saffron; the stigma of Crocus sativus Linné (Iridaceae), and its constituents (crocin and crocetin) suppressed aggregation of α-synuclein and promoted the dissociation of α-synuclein fibrils in vitro. In this study, we investigated the effect of dietary saffron and its constituent, crocetin, in vivo on a fly PD model overexpressing several mutant α-synuclein in a tissue-specific manner. Saffron and crocetin significantly suppressed the decrease of climbing ability in the Drosophila overexpressing A30P (A30P fly PD model) or G51D (G51D fly PD model) mutated α-synuclein in neurons. Saffron and crocetin extended the life span in the G51D fly PD model. Saffron suppressed the rough-eyed phenotype and the dispersion of the size histogram of the ocular long axis in A30P fly PD model in eye. Saffron had a cytoprotective effect on a human neuronal cell line with α-synuclein fibrils. These data showed that saffron and its constituent crocetin have protective effects on the progression of PD disease in animals in vivo and suggest that saffron and crocetin can be used to treat PD.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Stepanova ◽  
V. Srinivasan ◽  
D. Lindholm ◽  
M. H. Voutilainen

Abstract Huntington’s disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder with a progressive loss of medium spiny neurons in the striatum and aggregation of mutant huntingtin in the striatal and cortical neurons. Currently, there are no rational therapies for the treatment of the disease. Cerebral dopamine neurotrophic factor (CDNF) is an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) located protein with neurotrophic factor (NTF) properties, protecting and restoring the function of dopaminergic neurons in animal models of PD more effectively than other NTFs. CDNF is currently in phase I–II clinical trials on PD patients. Here we have studied whether CDNF has beneficial effects on striatal neurons in in vitro and in vivo models of HD. CDNF was able to protect striatal neurons from quinolinic acid (QA)-induced cell death in vitro via increasing the IRE1α/XBP1 signalling pathway in the ER. A single intrastriatal CDNF injection protected against the deleterious effects of QA in a rat model of HD. CDNF improved motor coordination and decreased ataxia in QA-toxin treated rats, and stimulated the neurogenesis by increasing doublecortin (DCX)-positive and NeuN-positive cells in the striatum. These results show that CDNF positively affects striatal neuron viability reduced by QA and signifies CDNF as a promising drug candidate for the treatment of HD.


1992 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 762-772 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean L. Jones ◽  
James G. Phillips ◽  
John L. Bradshaw ◽  
Robert Iansek ◽  
Judy A. Bradshaw

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