Exercise hormone halts Parkinson’s symptoms in mice

Hormones secreted into the blood during endurance or aerobic exercise reduce levels of proteins associated with Parkinson’s disease and halt movement disorders in mice, researchers report.

Parkinson’s disease, neurological condition It causes people to lose control over their muscles and movements and affects about 1 million people in the United States.

If confirmed by additional laboratory studies and clinical trials, the researchers’ work in mice engineered to have Parkinson’s symptoms could pave the way for Parkinson’s disease treatments based on the hormone irisin. I have.

“You can imagine the utility of irisin, if successful, being developed into a genetic or recombinant protein therapy.”

Ted Dawson of Johns Hopkins Medicine and Bruce Spiegelman of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute collaborated to examine the link between the motor molecule irisin and Parkinson’s disease.

For reasons unknown, endurance exercise has long been known to reduce symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.Dr. Dawson, whose research has focused on neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, said one of his first clues to a link between exercise, Parkinson’s disease and irisin was the first paper on irisin published in 2012. of Nature Later, other scientific journals showed that proteins called irisin peptides were released into the blood and increased with endurance exercise.

Over the past decade, other research organizations have found that exercise increases irisin levels, and there is interest in examining the relationship between irisin and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

To test the effects of irisin on Parkinson’s disease, Dawson and Spiegelman’s team started with the research model Dawson used. In this model, mouse brain cells are designed to spread out small, thin fibers. α-synucleina mood- and movement-regulating protein related to the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain.

For α-synuclein chunks of proteinthese clusters kill dopamine-producing brain cells, which are the main triggers of Parkinson’s disease. says.

In laboratory models, researchers found that irisin prevented the accumulation of alpha-synuclein clumps and associated brain cell death.

Next, the research team tested the effects of irisin on mice engineered to have Parkinson’s disease-like symptoms. was injected. Two weeks later, the researchers injected mice with a viral vector that increased blood levels of irisin, which can cross the blood-brain barrier.

After 6 months, the irisin-treated mice had no muscle movement impairments, while the placebo-injected mice had impaired grip strength and ability to descend the pole.

The researchers also demonstrated that irisin facilitates the transport and degradation of alpha-synuclein through fluid-filled sacs called lysosomes in brain cells.

“If the usefulness of irisin is successful, you can imagine it being developed into a genetic or recombinant protein therapy,” Dawson said, referring to the development of drugs aimed at using cytogenetics to treat disease. It mentions that the field is expanding. Dawson is Professor of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Professor of Neurology, and Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering.

“Given that irisin is a naturally occurring peptide hormone that appears to have evolved to cross the blood-brain barrier, we are interested in using irisin as a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease and other forms of neurodegeneration. We think it’s worth continuing to evaluate,” adds Spiegelman.

Dawson and Spiegelman filed a patent for the use of irisin in Parkinson’s disease. Spiegelman founded the Boston-based biotechnology company Aevum Therapeutics Inc. to develop irisin as a therapeutic for neurodegenerative diseases.

The results of tests by researchers Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Additional scientists who contributed to this study come from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Medical School.

Funding for this study was provided by the JPB Foundation, the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

sauce: Johns Hopkins University