Induction of adult human bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells into functional astrocyte-like cells: potential for restorative treatment in Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder with its motor phenomena due mostly to loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra. Pharmacological treatments aimed to increase the deficient dopaminergic neurotransmission are effective in ameliorating the cardinal symptoms, but none of these therapies is curative. It has been suggested that treatment with neurotrophic factors (NTFs) might protect and prevent death of the surviving dopaminergic neurons and induce proliferation of their axonal nerve terminals with reinnervations of the deafferented striatum.

Regenerative effect of neural-induced human mesenchymal stromal cells in rat models of Parkinson's disease.

Background: Human bone marrow multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSC), because of their capacity of multipotency, may provide an unlimited cell source for cell replacement therapy. The purpose of this study was to assess the developmental potential of hMSC to replace the midbrain dopamine neurons selectively lost in Parkinson's disease.

Methods: Cells were isolated and characterized, then induced to differentiate toward the neural lineage.

A novel thiol antioxidant that crosses the blood brain barrier protects dopaminergic neurons in experimental models of Parkinson's disease.

It is believed that oxidative stress (OS) plays an important role in the loss of dopaminergic nigrostriatal neurons in Parkinson's disease (PD) and that treatment with antioxidants might be neuroprotective. However, most currently available antioxidants cannot readily penetrate the blood brain barrier after systemic administration. We now report that AD4, the novel low molecular weight thiol antioxidant and the N-acytel cysteine (NAC) related compound, is capable of penetrating the brain and protects neurons in general and especially dopaminergic cells against various OS-generating neurotoxins in tissue cultures.