MODERN CELLULAR AND ANTISYNUCLEINIC STRATEGIES FOR PARKINSON’S DISEASE: IS THERE A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL?
Until now, despite the progress achieved in the management of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), the treatment of the disease remains symptomatic. Great hopes for the restoration of brain functions are associated today with cell replacement technologies or with the impact on the pathogenesis of PD by modifying the processing of the pathological isoform of the protein alpha-synuclein (a-Syn), the main molecular substrate of the neurodegenerative process that forms insoluble oligo- and polymeric amyloid like complexes in dying neurons. The article discusses the recent achievements in the development of neurotransplantation technologies for PD (intrastriatal administration of dopaminergic neurons), as well as in the development of modern strategies for “antisynucleinic” therapy of this disease (decrease of the expression and aggregation of a-Syn, and immunotherapy). Despite all the difficulties, these innovative approaches are now gradually entering the stage of advanced clinical studies.