Differential Alterations in Metabolism and Proteolysis-Related Proteins in Human Parkinson's Disease Substantia Nigra.

Parkinson's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer's disease, with the majority of cases being sporadic or "idiopathic". The aetiology of the sporadic form is still unknown, but there is a broad consensus that Parkinson's disease involves multiple pathways. In previous human post-mortem studies investigating substantia nigra of parkinsonian subjects, gene expression alterations in various metabolic pathways including protein folding, trafficking, aggregation, ubiquitination and oxidative stress were found.

Promise of neurorestoration and mitochondrial biogenesis in Parkinson's disease with multi target drugs: an alternative to stem cell therapy.

There is an unmet need in progressive neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. The present therapeutics for these diseases at best is symptomatic and is not able to delay disease or possess disease modifying activity. Thus an approach to drug design should be made to slow or halt progressive course of a neurological disorder by interfering with a disease-specific pathogenetic process.

Applying transcriptomic and proteomic knowledge to Parkinson's disease drug discovery.

It is recognised that in both genetic and sporadic cases of Parkinson's disease (PD), the basis of its etiopathology resides in the particular vulnerability of the dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) to oxidative stress and in the failure to adequately remove abnormal proteins. These observations have been confirmed recently by microarray transcriptomic studies in human SN from PD brains and have extended understanding of the molecular pathways underlying the PD pathology. This article reviews recent gene expression profiling studies in sporadic PD postmortem SN and highlights gene candidates as putative molecular signatures for early disease diagnosis.

Rasagiline: an anti-Parkinson drug with neuroprotective activity.

Mitochondria are now recognized as potent integrators and co-ordinators of cell survival/death and apoptosis. Therefore, they are pharmacological targets for induction or correction of excessive cell death in human pathology, which includes cancer and the neurodegenerative disorders Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. One such agent is the anti-Parkinson drug, rasagiline, a novel neuroprotective-antiapoptotic second-generation potent irreversible selective inhibitor of monoamine oxidase B.