ABOVE: IMAGE COURTESY OF THE GREENAMYRE LAB
Even when Parkinson’s patients don’t have mutations in a gene called LRRK2, more of the active enzyme the gene generates is present in their brains than in healthy brains, researchers reported last week (July 25) in Science Translational Medicine. The finding suggests that LRRK2 inhibitors could help to reduce harmful effects of the enzyme in the vast majority of Parkinson’s patients.
“This is the really interesting bit of data … the demonstration that when you look in the brains of individuals with idiopathic Parkinson’s [where the cause is unknown], that there’s evidence that LRRK2 is activated,” says Patrick Lewis, who studies Parkinson’s disease at University College London and the University of Reading in the UK. He has collaborated with one of the paper’s coauthors but was not involved in this study.
Ten percent of Parkinson’s cases have known genetic causes. Three percent of ...
