Parkinson Disease
- Joan Stephenson, PhD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- DISEASE PROGRESSION
- DOPAMINE
- FETAL TISSUE TRANSPLANTATION
- NEURONS
- PARKINSON DISEASE
- TRANSPLANTATION
Independent findings from 2 teams of scientists in Europe and North America suggest that using cell transplants to compensate for the destruction of dopamine-producing neurons in patients with Parkinson disease may be compromised because the disease is an ongoing process that can also affect the transplanted cells (Kordower JH et al. Nat Med. 10.1038/nm1747; Li J-Y et al. Nat Med. 10.1038/nm1746 [both published online ahead of print April 6, 2008]).
Postmortem examination of brains from 3 patients with Parkinson disease who had undergone transplants of fetal tissue 11, 14, or 16 years earlier showed that some of the transplanted cells contained Lewy bodies (clumps of protein containing α-synuclein), a hallmark of the disorder. However, in other postmortem findings also published online ahead of print on April 6, Canadian, Swedish, and US scientists found that grafted dopamine and serotonin neurons survived for up to 14 years in 5 …
