Parkinson's Disease, Reprogramming Technology

In class, we talked and read a SNBAL about how Parkinson's is due to dopamine-secreting neurons dying or becoming impaired. A newly emerged player in Parkinson's disease diagnosis is the recognition of damage to neural stem cells in patients. This article explains that damaged neural stem cells were found to be a commonality among a sample of Parkinson's patients, all of which had similar damage in the nuclear envelope of the cells.

The experiment described in this article was performed by reprogramming cells with a known genetic mutation discovered to be responsible for deforming the membrane and nucleus of a neural stem cell, similar to the deformations found in Parkinson's patients. After the known genetic mutation is corrected, the nuclear envelope was repaired and the overall functions of the neural stem cells were also restored. This reprogramming technology could lead to new diagnosis and/or treatments for Parkinson's disease.

Source: http://www.news-medical.net/news/20121020/Stem-cell-study-may-help-to-unravel-how-genetic-mutation-leads-to-Parkinsons-symptoms.aspx