AI Article Synopsis

  • AADC deficiency is a serious inherited neurological disorder that results in significant cognitive and motor delays due to low levels of dopamine and serotonin, often leading to a high risk of early death.
  • Current treatments have limited effectiveness, but new gene therapy methods are being researched to potentially help patients.
  • Researchers created a neuronal model using stem cells from patients to better understand the disorder, finding that treatments like l-DOPA can improve symptoms and offering a platform for tailored therapies.

Article Abstract

Aromatic l-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) deficiency is a complex inherited neurological disorder of monoamine synthesis which results in dopamine and serotonin deficiency. The majority of affected individuals have variable, though often severe cognitive and motor delay, with a complex movement disorder and high risk of premature mortality. For most, standard pharmacological treatment provides only limited clinical benefit. Promising gene therapy approaches are emerging, though may not be either suitable or easily accessible for all patients. To characterize the underlying disease pathophysiology and guide precision therapies, we generated a patient-derived midbrain dopaminergic neuronal model of AADC deficiency from induced pluripotent stem cells. The neuronal model recapitulates key disease features, including absent AADC enzyme activity and dysregulated dopamine metabolism. We observed developmental defects affecting synaptic maturation and neuronal electrical properties, which were improved by lentiviral gene therapy. Bioinformatic and biochemical analyses on recombinant AADC predicted that the activity of one variant could be improved by l-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (l-DOPA) administration; this hypothesis was corroborated in the patient-derived neuronal model, where l-DOPA treatment leads to amelioration of dopamine metabolites. Our study has shown that patient-derived disease modelling provides further insight into the neurodevelopmental sequelae of AADC deficiency, as well as a robust platform to investigate and develop personalized therapeutic approaches.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8418346PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/brain/awab123DOI Listing

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