Marmosets-parkinsonics

The Japanese have bred monkeys with Parkinson's disease

Oleg Lischuk, N+1

Japanese scientists have for the first time bred genetically modified monkeys with Parkinson's disease. They presented the results of their work in the Austrian Alpbach at the thematic conference State of the Brain, held by the American non-profit organization Keystone Symposium. New Scientist (The First monkey genetically engineered to have Parkinson's created) dedicated material to their achievements.

Employees of Keio University in Tokyo introduced a defective copy of the human SNCA gene into the genome of monkeys from the igrunkov family, which is directly related to the development of Parkinson's disease. In people with a mutant copy of this gene, its product, the protein alpha–synuclein, aggregates in brain tissue to form insoluble fibrils. These fibrils serve as the main component of Levi's bodies – cytoplasmic inclusions that appear in affected nerve cells in Parkinson's disease and some other neurodegenerative diseases.

As the transgenic monkeys matured, they began to develop symptoms similar to the early manifestations of Parkinson's disease. So, in the first year of life they had sleep disorders, and in the second – deposits of Levi's corpuscles in the neurons of the brain stem. By the age of three, the animals developed characteristic motor disorders, in particular, tremor.

The high reliability of the obtained monkey model of Parkinson's disease is indicated by the fact that, according to the head of the study Hideyuki Okano, the condition of the animals improved significantly after the appointment of the basic antiparkinsonian drug levodopa. It is a biochemical precursor of the neurotransmitter dopamine, the level of which in the motor neurons of the black matter of the brain decreases sharply with Parkinsonism).

The genetic model reproduces the mechanisms of disease development much more clearly than the pharmacological one – currently, the destruction of motor neurons by selective neurotropic poisons, mainly 6-hydroxydophamine and 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) is used.

Despite the constant campaigns of animal rights defenders, monkeys serve as almost irreplaceable models of human neurodegenerative diseases, since their course, symptoms and response to therapy are reproduced much more accurately than in roundworms, fruit flies and rodents, which are also used for these purposes.

Okano intends to use the obtained model to study the mechanisms of development of individual symptoms of Parkinson's disease and, as a result, to develop more effective treatments. One of the organizers of State of the Brain, Terrence Sejnowski from the Salk Institute of California, admitted that due to the pressure of ethical committees, it is increasingly difficult for Western laboratories to conduct experiments on primates. In this regard, he expressed hope for the creation of a global brain research collaboration in which neuroscientists around the world could invest the strengths of their laboratories.

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's disease. It has a chronic progressive course and is manifested by dyskinesia, stiffness, tremor, coordination and speech disorders, sleep and emotion disorders, as well as skin lesions, sensory organs and internal organs. There is currently no radical treatment for the disease, therapy is aimed at slowing its progression (sometimes for decades) and combating individual symptoms.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  17.06.2016