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Future Cure for Parkinson’s Disease
CUHK researchers develop novel peptide inhibitor for Parkinson’s disease treatment
A research team led by Prof. Michael Chan and Dr. Marianne Lee from the School of Life Sciences has developed a novel peptide inhibitor that can reduce the formation of neurotoxic protein in aggregates, slowing down the deterioration progress in patients with Parkinson’s disease and other types of neurodegenerative diseases.
Parkinson’s disease is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases in the elderly. Despite the lack of medical evidence for its clear cause at this stage, various studies have found that α-synuclein, a protein which aggregates in the brain nerve cells of patients with Parkinson’s disease and dementia, can lead to progressive loss of cognitive and motor functions.
‘Most patients with Parkinson’s disease and dementia have aggregates of α-synuclein in their brain,’ said Prof. Michael Chan. ‘We believe the progression of the disease can be delayed if there is a therapy which can inhibit the α-synuclein accumulation.’
In 2015, Ms. Liang Zhaohui, a PhD student in Professor Chan and Dr. Lee’s laboratory, discovered that certain variants of the protein, SUMO1, were effective against α-synuclein accumulation. In the ensuing five years, the team identified a minimal functional core, SUMO1(15-55), which can bind to α-synuclein and directly suppress its aggregation.
The team then collaborated with Prof. Edwin Chan from the School of Life Sciences and Gerald Choa Neuroscience Centre, CUHK, and made use of the fruit fly Drosophila to carry out experiments and further evaluate the neuroprotective effect of SUMO1(15-55). They found that treatment of Drosophila larvae with the SUMO1(15-55) peptide can lead to an amelioration of neurodegenerative disease symptoms, highlighting the potential of their peptide as a therapeutic inhibitor against Parkinson’s disease.
As of today, the research team is working on improving the biostability, brain-targeting ability and therapeutic efficacy of the peptide inhibitor, with the hope that an optimized construct can eventually be used to treat patients in the clinic.
The current work is supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, the CUHK Centre of Novel Biomaterials, the CUHK School of Life Sciences Seed Fund, and the CUHK Faculty Major Research Area 2 Translational Biomedicine Research Incentive Scheme 16/17. Findings of this study are reported in the prestigious journal Cell Chemical Biology.