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Origin of Parkinson's Disease Identified Almost

It has been learnt, according to a new study, that the nerve cell death playing an influential role in helping to drive the Parkinson's disease may be initiated by a destructive change in a particular nerve cell protein. The eminent group of researchers have also opined that the very procedure of modification, happens to be a toxic mix of the protein alpha-synuclein and the critical neurotransmitter dopamine, can be found within the Parkinson's patients. What does the process of modification then signify? The change is found to short-circuit a process that allows aging nerve cells to stay healthy by purging themselves of damaged molecules.

Speaking on the occasion to this reporter, Dr. Ana Maria Cuervo, the study author and also an Associate Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology at Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City said, "The general idea is that, in Parkinson's, the neurons accumulate lots of garbage. Normally this garbage is removed before it builds up, and is dumped into garbage containers called lysosomes, which make sure things can move about the neurons fast and freely." She also said, "But sometimes, this mechanism fails. And now we have found the reason why. It is because of the formation of this particular modified protein, which acts kind of like chewing gum in the middle of the nerve cell. It's not a normal protein. It's very sticky, and any other proteins passing by get stuck to it, so you get all these abnormal things, these stones in the middle of the cell's highways, that are not being removed, and eventually the [brain] cells can't move things around as they should, and they die."

However, Dr. Robert Burke, Director of the Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence at Columbia University, called the new findings a "big step forward." "Their first finding was only related to the mutant form of the protein which is very rare," he noted. "Whereas here they have shown that dopamine-modified neurons also block the system. This means they now have something that appears applicable to patients with the much more common sporadic form of Parkinson's. And that is very, very helpful."

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