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Picornavirus May Be Linked to Parkinson’s Disease through Viral Antigen in Dopamine-Containing Neurons of Substantia Nigra

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease linked with the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain region called substantia nigra and caused by unknown pathogenic mechanisms. Two currently recognized prominent features of PD are an inflammatory response manifested by glial reaction an...

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Autores principales: Niklasson, Bo, Lindquist, Lars, Klitz, William, Fredrikson, Sten, Morgell, Roland, Mohammadi, Reza, Karapetyan, Yervand, Englund, Elisabet
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8953350/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35336174
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10030599
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author Niklasson, Bo
Lindquist, Lars
Klitz, William
Fredrikson, Sten
Morgell, Roland
Mohammadi, Reza
Karapetyan, Yervand
Englund, Elisabet
author_facet Niklasson, Bo
Lindquist, Lars
Klitz, William
Fredrikson, Sten
Morgell, Roland
Mohammadi, Reza
Karapetyan, Yervand
Englund, Elisabet
author_sort Niklasson, Bo
collection PubMed
description Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease linked with the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain region called substantia nigra and caused by unknown pathogenic mechanisms. Two currently recognized prominent features of PD are an inflammatory response manifested by glial reaction and T-cell infiltration, as well as the presence of various toxic mediators derived from activated glial cells. PD or parkinsonism has been described after infection with several different viruses and it has therefore been hypothesized that a viral infection might play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease. We investigated formalin-fixed post-mortem brain tissue from 9 patients with Parkinson’s disease and 11 controls for the presence of Ljungan virus (LV) antigen using a polyclonal antibody against the capsid protein of this recently identified picornavirus with neurotropic properties, suspected of being both a human and an animal pathogen. Evidence of viral antigen was found in 7 out of 9 Parkinson’s disease cases and in only 1 out of 11 controls (p = 0.005). The picornavirus antigen was present in dopamine-containing neurons of the substantia nigra. We propose that LV or an LV-related virus initiates the pathological process underlying sporadic PD. LV-related picornavirus antigen has also been reported in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Potentially successful antiviral treatment in Alzheimer’s disease suggests a similar treatment for Parkinson's disease. Amantadine, originally developed as an antiviral drug against influenza infection, has also been used for symptomatic treatment of patients with PD for more than 50 years and is still commonly used by neurologists today. The fact that amantadine also has an antiviral effect on picornaviruses opens the question of this drug being re-evaluated as potential PD therapy in combination with other antiviral compounds directed against picornaviruses.
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spelling pubmed-89533502022-03-26 Picornavirus May Be Linked to Parkinson’s Disease through Viral Antigen in Dopamine-Containing Neurons of Substantia Nigra Niklasson, Bo Lindquist, Lars Klitz, William Fredrikson, Sten Morgell, Roland Mohammadi, Reza Karapetyan, Yervand Englund, Elisabet Microorganisms Communication Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease linked with the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain region called substantia nigra and caused by unknown pathogenic mechanisms. Two currently recognized prominent features of PD are an inflammatory response manifested by glial reaction and T-cell infiltration, as well as the presence of various toxic mediators derived from activated glial cells. PD or parkinsonism has been described after infection with several different viruses and it has therefore been hypothesized that a viral infection might play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease. We investigated formalin-fixed post-mortem brain tissue from 9 patients with Parkinson’s disease and 11 controls for the presence of Ljungan virus (LV) antigen using a polyclonal antibody against the capsid protein of this recently identified picornavirus with neurotropic properties, suspected of being both a human and an animal pathogen. Evidence of viral antigen was found in 7 out of 9 Parkinson’s disease cases and in only 1 out of 11 controls (p = 0.005). The picornavirus antigen was present in dopamine-containing neurons of the substantia nigra. We propose that LV or an LV-related virus initiates the pathological process underlying sporadic PD. LV-related picornavirus antigen has also been reported in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Potentially successful antiviral treatment in Alzheimer’s disease suggests a similar treatment for Parkinson's disease. Amantadine, originally developed as an antiviral drug against influenza infection, has also been used for symptomatic treatment of patients with PD for more than 50 years and is still commonly used by neurologists today. The fact that amantadine also has an antiviral effect on picornaviruses opens the question of this drug being re-evaluated as potential PD therapy in combination with other antiviral compounds directed against picornaviruses. MDPI 2022-03-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8953350/ /pubmed/35336174 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10030599 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Niklasson, Bo
Lindquist, Lars
Klitz, William
Fredrikson, Sten
Morgell, Roland
Mohammadi, Reza
Karapetyan, Yervand
Englund, Elisabet
Picornavirus May Be Linked to Parkinson’s Disease through Viral Antigen in Dopamine-Containing Neurons of Substantia Nigra
title Picornavirus May Be Linked to Parkinson’s Disease through Viral Antigen in Dopamine-Containing Neurons of Substantia Nigra
title_full Picornavirus May Be Linked to Parkinson’s Disease through Viral Antigen in Dopamine-Containing Neurons of Substantia Nigra
title_fullStr Picornavirus May Be Linked to Parkinson’s Disease through Viral Antigen in Dopamine-Containing Neurons of Substantia Nigra
title_full_unstemmed Picornavirus May Be Linked to Parkinson’s Disease through Viral Antigen in Dopamine-Containing Neurons of Substantia Nigra
title_short Picornavirus May Be Linked to Parkinson’s Disease through Viral Antigen in Dopamine-Containing Neurons of Substantia Nigra
title_sort picornavirus may be linked to parkinson’s disease through viral antigen in dopamine-containing neurons of substantia nigra
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8953350/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35336174
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10030599
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