According to a recent study, a new drug molecule could lead to preventive treatments for early onset Parkinson's disease.
“This drug compound gives us hope because it might allow us to develop the first curative treatment for Parkinson's disease, at least in a subgroup of patients,” explains Kalle Gehring, Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Structural Biology of Neurodegenerative Diseases.
Generally, symptoms of Parkinson's disease—slowed movements, tremors, and loss of balance—appear in individuals in their sixties. However, between five and ten percent of diagnosed cases are among people under the age of 40. This degenerative disease affects over 100,000 people in Canada, researchers point out.
The study aimed to determine how a molecule developed by the biotechnology company Biogen could reactivate an essential protein called parkin. Normally, this protein ensures neuron health by removing damaged mitochondria (the energy producers of cells). In certain young patients, mutations in parkin impair this function, leading to an accumulation of damaged mitochondria which triggers neuron death, ultimately leading to Parkinson's disease.
Using cutting-edge technology from the Canadian Light Source (CLS), a research facility at the University of Saskatchewan, the research team found that Biogen's compound restored parkin's cleaning function by binding it to a natural cell activator.
Published in the journal
Nature Communications, the study lays the groundwork for personalized treatments designed for young people carrying well-defined parkin mutations, the authors say.
“We hope to one day find compounds that can treat all cases of Parkinson's disease,” adds Prof. Gehring, noting that it is now up to Biogen to incorporate the study's findings into the development of new drugs.
“Due to the aging population and the emergence of effective treatments for other diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, will become increasingly common in Canada,” he concludes.
Research groups from McGill University led by Prof. Jean-François Trempe from the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Prof. Edward Fon from the Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, collaborated on this study, which was funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Canada Research Chairs Program.