Increased understanding of the cause and progression of Parkinson's disease may ultimately bring researchers closer to the discovery of drugs that halt disease progression
Data published in the 25 August 2004 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience reported that researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center, using GE Healthcare's CodeLink microarrays, have identified key changes in gene expression that provide an improved understanding of the malfunction and death of the neurons controlling movement and coordination associated with Parkinson's Disease.
Currently, more than one million people in North America suffer from Parkinson's, a devastating neurological condition.
"This study represents a step forward in the medical community's search for the underlying mechanisms that cause Parkinson's," said Howard Federoff, director of the Center for Aging and Developmental Biology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. "Until now the challenge has been finding a method to identify and track the sequence of molecular events that lead to the development of Parkinson's Disease.
"CodeLink provided us the advantage of detecting gene expression changes previously undetectable.
"As a result, we were able to observe small yet significant changes relating to neuron function, which may shed light on the cause and progression of this devastating disease".
In this preclinical study, researchers administered a neurotoxicant (MPTP), a known inducer of Parkinson's and then used CodeLink UniSet Mouse I Bioarray and CodeLink Scanning and Expression Analysis software to study the gene expression of MPTP treated genes in the substantia nigra (SN) portion of the brain.
Analysis detected dysregulation of genes in three main areas related to neuron function: cytoskeletal stability and maintenance, synaptic integrity, and the life cycle of the cell and apoptosis, the naturally occurring process of cellular death.
"The study of gene expression is increasingly important as it gives researchers clues to the molecular mechanisms involved in many disease processes and can lead to a greater understanding of the nature of disease.
"Our objective with the CodeLink platform is to use the characterisation of disease pathways to develop early stage molecular diagnostics for a range of diseases, including Parkinson's and enable the eventual development of better targeted therapeutics," said Chockalingam Palaniappan, head of R and D, molecular diagnostics for GE Healthcare.
