Prof. William Burke and his team at Saint Louis University School of Medicine believe that they have uncovered how Parkinson's disease is triggered. Parkinson's happens when a protein called alphasynuclein (AS) clumps together in the brain. The clumps, also called Lewy bodes cause dopamine-producing nerve cells to stop working or die which triggers the effects of the disease.
Scientists did not know why the clumping occurred but Burke believes he and his team have found the answer. Dopamine itself. Seems dopamine destroys itself through a by-product called 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetaldehyde (DOPAL).
"This is very exciting," he said. "This is the first time that anyone has ever established that it is a naturally occurring by-product of dopamine that causes alpha-synuclein to aggregate, or clump together. It's actually DOPAL that kicks this whole process off and results in Parkinson's disease" stated Burke.
According to DrugSearcher, "DOPAL was predicted to be toxic some 50 years ago, but it wasn't until Burke and his colleagues synthesized the molecule, that this hypothesis could be tested. Since then, the St Louis University team, joined by others from Washington University in St. Louis, have been working to find out what effects DOPAL has in the brain. The team tested DOPAL-induced AS aggregation in a cell-free system, in vitro in dopamine neuron cultures and in vivo with injections into the brains of rats, by Western blots, fluorescent confocal microscopy and immunohistochemistry. They found that at physiologically relevant concentrations, DOPAL causes AS to aggregate in the cell-free system and in cell cultures. In the rats, injection of DOPAL caused dopamine neurons to die and AS clumps to form."
Parkinson's disease is characterized as a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that usually impairs speech and motor skills.
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I assume that other by-products of the DA breakdown were tested but only DOPAL showed clumping of the AS?
If this is correct, is next step to find why this happens in some people and not in others? Presumably the mechanism of DA breakdown &/or the dissipation mechanism of this chemical (causing it to accumulate) have gone astray.
Surely it should not take long to find out these things. Perhaps it is time that various research institutions (and USA would be no doubt the leader) get joint effort amongst themselves to crack it. One thing is annoying when articles "spoil" hope by saying such things as "if confirmed" or "if proven correct". I would have thought that if a reputable research institution such as SLU Med. Centre says we found it so be it... otherwise don't publish it.
Regards
Aris
Posted by: Aris Lazaridis | November 4, 2007 6:30 PM | Permalink to Comment