Monday, 11 March 2013 18:59

More precise Parkinson's Research with Stem Cells Featured

Brain researchers from Tübingen and Münster have "treated" a common variant of Parkinson's disease using a human stem cell culture thus gaining new insights in the field, without using animals.

Brain researchers from Tübingen and Münster were succeeded in correcting a certain Parkinson's DNA mutation of human stem cells in the test tube - the so-called G2019S mutation in the LRRK2 gene. It is the most common genetic mutation in Parkinson's patients.

In their joint press release, both, the head of the Tübingen Hertie Institute, Prof. Thomas Gasser and the group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Münster, Dr. Jared Stern Eckert, were enthused: "We were succeeded in correcting one gene in the test tube therefore gaining a direct insight into the effects of the mutation in human nerve cells, "said Professor Dr. Thomas Gasser, CEO at the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain research (HIH) of the Tübingen University and spokesman at the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Tübingen. "We also showed that stem cell-based cell models, in fact are suitable, to display Parkinsons in vitro allowing a better and more accurate research on Parkinson's disease without animal models," said Dr. Jared Stern Eckert, head of group at the Max Planck Institute for molecular Biomedicine, Münster.

Original publication: Genetic Correction of a LRRK2 mutation in human iPSCs links parkinsonian neurodegeneration to ERK-dependent Changes in Gene Expression. Cell Stem Cell (2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2013.01.00