New research could revitalize GDNF therapy for PD

The infusion of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) into the brains of people with Parkinson's disease induces the growth of nerve fibres in a region of the brain affected by the disorder. Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, Seth Love of the Frenchay Hospital, in Bristol, UK, hopes to revitalize interest in GDNF administration as a potential therapy for this degenerative condition.

In Parkinson's disease, the chemical messenger dopamine is lost in a brain region known as the putamen, leading to the motor abnormalities characteristic of the disease, such as a shuffling gait, shaking, tremors, and other abnormalities of movement. Previously, a small clinical trial showed that injection of GDNF directly into the putamen of people with the disease led to clinical improvement. However, a second trial was halted, due in part to safety considerations.

Now, Love and his colleagues have analyzed the brain of one of the patients that took part in the original trial who had improved after GDNF therapy. The Bristol team found that dopamine-containing nerve fibres had sprouted back in the putamen. This is the first neuropathological evidence that infusion of GDNF in humans causes sprouting of dopamine fibres in association with clinical improvement in Parkinson disease.

If you're a Nature Medicine subscriber you can read the complete paper here - http://doi.dx.org/10.1038/nm0705-703
 

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