In Brief
- Researchers have reprogrammed existing brain cells in mice into dopamine neurons to reduce their symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
- This novel approach could be used to treat Parkinson’s disease with stem cells which are not transplanted but induced from patients’ own brain cells.
Support cells turned super cells
Parkinson’s disease is one of the world’s commonest neurodegenerative ailments. It causes patients with Parkinson’s to lose dopamine neurons, which are vital for the motor control centers of the brain.
According to statistics from the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, there are over 10 million people worldwide who suffer from it, with about 60,000 diagnosed cases in the United States alone.
Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm developed a stem cell-based treatment that doesn’t rely on embryonic or adult stem cells, which are often too difficult to harness and transplant into the brain. Instead, they found a way to reprogram the brain’s astrocytes — support cells for neurons — into dopamine neurons.
The Project:
Reprogramming a cell that is already inside the brain and altering its function could improve neurological symptoms as quoted by senior author Ernest Arenas. The trick was adding three genes and a small RNA molecule to force astrocytes into becoming dopamine neurons.
The treatment was tested on mice whose dopamine neurons in brain were destroyed to stimulate Parkinson’s disease. Within 5 weeks of being injected with this gene cocktail, the mice showed improved and more coordinated movement. These results were published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
A Novel Approach
While this stem cell approach won’t cure Parkinson’s, it can certainly improve current standard treatment for it.
1.Astrocytes are already present in the brains of Parkinson’s patients. Reprogramming these would eliminate the need for donor cells and also the risk of incompatibility.
2.The proteins produced in the treatment are involved normal processes and reduce the risk of side effects caused by current drug therapies.
“This is like stem cell 2.0. It’s the next-generation approach to stem cell treatments and regenerative medicine,” said James Beck, VP and chief scientific officer for the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, a nonprofit organization that was not involved with the research.
However, further research is still required to study that this reprogramming method doesn’t alter other cells in the brain. This could pave way to human clinical trials very soon.
“This is an insight into what the future of Parkinson’s treatment holds,” Beck noted.
Stem cell therapies are revolutionizing Parkinson’s disease treatment, as well as a host of other medical conditions. Many believe that the ability to reprogram cells is a glimpse of the future, not just of Parkinson’s treatment, but of the entire field of medical research.