{"id":8682,"date":"2018-02-08T11:15:17","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T18:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canadianglycomics.ca\/?p=8682"},"modified":"2019-08-01T11:02:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T17:02:01","slug":"researchers-identifying-new-markers-for-parkinsons-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianglycomics.ca\/fr\/researchers-identifying-new-markers-for-parkinsons-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers identifying new markers for Parkinson\u2019s disease"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
GlycoNet network investigator Chris Phenix, professor, University of Saskatchewan. Source: University of Saskatchewan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Sarath Peiris for the University of Saskatchewan<\/p>\n

An estimated 55,000 Canadians over age 18 have been diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease, characterized by symptoms such as tremors, muscle rigidity and unstable balance.<\/p>\n

A diagnosis of the neurodegenerative disease can be tricky, and only fully confirmed by examining a patient\u2019s brain after death. Its symptoms usually emerge only when a significant number of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain are dead.<\/p>\n

But now a multidisciplinary team from three provinces, led by University of Saskatchewan (U of S) and SHRF-funded researcher Chris Phenix, is studying a way to identify Parkinson\u2019s sooner.<\/p>\n

Techniques that specifically detect Parkinson\u2019s earlier mean interventions can begin sooner, especially for young people, and potentially mitigate the loss of neurons.<\/p>\n

Using fluorine-18 provided by the Saskatchewan Centre for Cyclotron Sciences at the U of S, Phenix\u2019s team is studying an enzyme in the brain whose levels have been found to drop off rapidly and early in Parkinson\u2019s patients. The research could lead to the development of new drugs to treat the disease in its early stages.<\/p>\n

That enzyme, known as glucocerebrosidase (GCase), has recently attracted considerable attention from the Parkinson\u2019s research community and been identified as a high priority therapeutic target and diagnostic biomarker for the disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest value of this project comes from the development of a clinically relevant research tool to figure out if GCase is playing a critical role in Parkinson\u2019s and, if it is, to help researchers develop better medicines and get those drugs into the clinic to improve therapy,\u201d Phenix said.<\/p>\n

His team wants to build on promising preliminary results obtained from in vitro tests on living cells.<\/p>\n

With promising radiotracer ligands (molecules that produce a signal by binding to a target protein) they have discovered, Phenix and his colleagues will use positron emission tomography (PET) to peer into the biochemistry of the living brain. These ligands selectively attach to GCase enzymes in the brain.<\/p>\n

Read more about Phenix\u2019s SHRF-funded Establishment grant project that provided the preliminary steps towards the development of a PET method as a research tool to investigate the role of glucocerebrosidase in Parkinson’s disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the technology matures, we hope to use these radiotracers to non-invasively and safely study the activity of GCase in the living brain at the PET centre at Royal University Hospital,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Phenix, who describes himself as a chemist, radiochemist, enzymologist and \u201csomewhat of a jack of all trades,\u201d has been awarded $392,000 by the national research network, GlycoNet, and the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation (SHRF) toward the two-year project. Two graduate students and two post-doctoral fellows (part-time) will participate in the project.<\/p>\n

The cyclotron facility, operated at the U of S by the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation, is contributing fluorine-18 to the project. The facility includes labs for safely handling radiochemicals, where Phenix\u2019s team will be developing and evaluating the radiotracers.<\/p>\n

The other major partner providing crucial in-kind support is Lysosomal Therapeutics Inc. of Boston, which specializes in therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.<\/p>\n

Several pharmaceutical companies have drugs that activate GCase, Phenix said. Only patients with low levels of the enzyme would benefit from these targeted medicines.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why PET is emerging as a critical tool for academic and pharmaceutical researchers. The research can help them identify the best drug sooner, and choose for clinical trials only those patients most likely to benefit from the drug.<\/p>\n

Phenix\u2019s team includes U of S professors David Palmer in chemistry, who is helping with enzymology and developing new compounds, and Darrell Mousseau in psychiatry, who holds a research chair in Alzheimer\u2019s and related dementias and will provide neurobiology expertise.<\/p>\n

Also on the team are University of Manitoba chemistry professor Rebecca Davis, who will design computational studies to help identify suitable ligands and how they interact with GCase, and Justin Hicks, a radiochemist at the Lawson Health Research Institute in London, Ontario, who is contributing to brain imaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team will prepare and identify the best compounds that get into the brain, crossing the protective blood-brain barrier that says, \u2018You are not supposed to be in here,\u2019 and pumps out certain drugs or radiopharmaceuticals,\u201d Phenix said.<\/p>\n

Identifying a suitable PET tracer is anticipated within two years. Testing on human subjects will then happen quickly, Phenix said, because radiotracers only are given at safe microdoses, and the team will have done many of the necessary preclinical studies.<\/p>\n

But he acknowledges there will be challenges: \u201cIf this was easy, it would have been done already.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was reprinted with permission from the University of Saskatchewan. Sarath Peiris is Assistant Director of Research Profile and Impact at the University of Saskatchewan. <\/em>Read this story on the U of S News page.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sarath Peiris for the University of Saskatchewan An estimated 55,000 Canadians over age 18 have been diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease, characterized by symptoms such as tremors, muscle rigidity and unstable balance. A diagnosis of the neurodegenerative disease can be tricky, and only fully confirmed by examining a patient\u2019s brain after death. Its symptoms usually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[203],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-highlight","wpbf-post"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t