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1. The Weakest LinkThe challenge for Parkinson's researchers lies in unravelling the complex mechanisms that bring about nerve cell death in people with Parkinson's. The ultimate aim is to understand Parkinson's and design effective treatments and ultimately find a cure for the disease. The Parkinson's Disease Society Tissue Bank plays an important role in achieving these research goals but many people do not realise how important the research on human tissue is. Parkinson's only affects humans and hence the brain tissue donated via the Tissue Bank is one of the only ways that researchers can investigate what is causing the nerve cells in Parkinson’s to die! These vital clues from the brain tissue will lead to the development of new drugs to treat Parkinson’s and hopefully a cure. The Parkinson's Disease Society Tissue Bank at Imperial College is trying to recruit as many Parkinson's and healthy volunteers onto its prospective donor scheme as possible. The more tissue we have the faster researchers can carry out their investigations. However, the vast majority of potential donors signed up to the donor scheme have late onset Parkinson's but as you know, Parkinson's also affects younger people too. Indeed, 1 in 7 people diagnosed with Parkinson’s are aged under 40. Hence, if scientists are to examine what is causing the brain cells in younger Parkinson's to die and to see whether this is the same as in people who develop the disease later on in life, we need people with young onset Parkinson's to sign up to the Tissue Bank donor scheme as well. At the moment the "weakest link" in the Tissue Bank's program is that we have very little tissue from younger onset Parkinson's cases to give out to researchers. In addition we have very few people with younger onset Parkinson's signed up to our donor scheme. Hence, if you are a person who was affected by Parkinson's at a younger age and require some further information about our donor scheme please do not hesitate to contact the Tissue Bank. Your tissue could be vital to our work. Also if you have any younger onset members in your PDS branch or an associated YAPP&Rs group please do forward this newsletter on to them.
Dr David T. Dexter,
2. Parkinson’s Awareness Week 2004Parkinson’s Awareness Week (PAW) takes place between 18th April and the 25th April 2004. This year the overall theme is "care and support". There is also particular focus on Parkinson’s Disease Nurse Specialists (PDNS). If any branches or PDNS’s are organising an event for the week and would like to display some information about the Tissue Bank please contact us (see end of page). |
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3. A Personal View of Tissue Donation.The death of a loved one is obviously a very emotional time for anyone, the following article describes a personal view of donation of a loved one’s tissue to the Tissue Bank at this difficult time. Molly Davies very kindly agreed to talk to us about how she felt about her husband’s donation to the Tissue Bank. Molly, whose husband Ian died last year, felt that although Parkinson’s can be very difficult to live with, registering to become a donor to the Tissue Bank is one way people can make a positive move in the face of the condition. Ian Davies had Parkinson’s, but Molly says this was by no means the sum of him. Parkinson’s came at the end of a very full life, which included a long career as a judge, a keen interest in sports and even some parachute jumping! Before he died, Ian was unwell and it was a very difficult time for them both. However, they decided Ian should register with the Tissue Bank. Then when he died, Molly found a sense of comfort in the valuable gift of tissue donation. ‘Something good came out of it,’ says Molly. Her view was reinforced by her visit to the Tissue Bank. Molly says she found it inspiring and uplifting to see the amount of work that was going on with the tissue. ‘I particularly enjoyed going around the laboratories and was intrigued by the lectures and the microscope slides. Visiting the Tissue Bank gave me a great boost and I was reassured as to what had happened to the tissue Ian had donated. I decided having helped arrange the donation for Ian, I must do so myself a also signed up to become a donor.’ If you have missed this year’s event (16th April 2004) then there will be another opportunity next year. Dr Yasmin Hadi and Dr Kirstin Goldring 4. The Story so far...The number of people signing up to the Tissue Bank has continued to increase over the past few months and the production of the last newsletter led to an influx of requests for information and people registering with the Tissue bank. The majority of those signed up are in the 60-70 age group. See article by Dr Dexter. 5. Research Progress: Understanding Alpha–SynucleinEvery cell in the body carries a copy of the entire genome, but only uses those portions of it that it needs. Each gene is like a recipe for a corresponding protein, (which are molecular machines) each with a specialised function within the cell such as transport within the cell. The study of gene expression alone is insufficient for understanding a disease. The proteins that result from gene expression are just as important and often pose a more complex problem for scientists looking to unravel what is going wrong in Parkinson's. Some rare forms of PD can be considered truly "genetic". They can be inherited from a parent and caused by a mutation in a gene that either makes a particular protein incorrectly or just in much higher quantities than the cell actually needs. Some proteins responsible for inducing genetic PD are known. Most cases of PD are not genetic in this sense, this is referred to as "idiopathic" Parkinson’s, but that does not mean that genetics are not involved in the disease, but they may increase our susceptibility to PD. The invention of microarrays, or "gene chips", allows us to observe the gene expression levels of the entire genome at once. Using these gene chips and tissue from the PDS Tissue Bank, we have been comparing the gene expression profiles of brains affected by Parkinson's disease with healthy brains. We have already isolated many genes that are expressed more in PD brains than in controls. Now we are using the gene chip data to study proteins that appear to behave abnormally in PD brains. Alpha synuclein is one protein that we are particularly interested in. In brains affected by PD, proteins that are not broken down properly clump together inside brain cells. Some of these clumps, called inclusions, can grow so large that they fill the cell body and cause it to burst. Other inclusions occur in the thin processes by which brain cells communicate with each other, preventing messages from being transmitted from one brain region to another. It is known that alpha-synuclein is a major component of these inclusions, but no one knows what this protein’s function is in the cell or what might cause it to dysfunction and accumulate in this manner. There are many possibilities. The protein-regulated mechanisms that are responsible for making or breaking down alpha-synuclein might be at fault, or there might be a problem with proteins that are supposed to work with alpha-synuclein in accomplishing its job in the cell. Of course, finding out just what that job is in the first place is a high priority for us and many other researchers around the world. We are trying to learn more about alpha-synuclein and how it interacts with other proteins by using a technique called immunohistochemistry, in which a coloured probe is attached to the protein of interest, allowing us to observe its location and make inferences into its function. Another technique, in situ hybridisation, will allow us to visualise which cells are actively making these proteins from their genetic code. Again we are relying on tissue from the PDS Tissue Bank to carry out all these experiments. We hope to gain an understanding of how and why these proteins begin to malfunction so that we can develop new approaches to treat PD.
Emilie Croiser,
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6. Future Branch Talks
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