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Parkinson disease

Asthma drug could protect against PD

Nature Reviews Neurology volume 13, page 641 (2017)Cite this article

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An existing asthma medication could be repurposed as a therapy for Parkinson disease (PD), according to a new study. Researchers found that salbutamol, a β2-adrenoreceptor (β2AR) agonist that is used to treat asthma, was associated with a reduced risk of PD in a Norwegian population. This treatment might act through epigenetic suppression of SNCA, the gene that encodes α-synuclein (α-syn).

“We hypothesized that the most direct and acute solution would address the problem at its origin and simply turn down excessive SNCA transcription,” comments corresponding author Clemens Scherzer. To this end, the team carried out a screen on 1,126 compounds to identify modifiers of SNCA expression in a human neuroblastoma cell line. Four compounds significantly reduced levels of α-syn, three of which were β2AR agonists.

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References

  1. Mittal, S. et al. α2-Adrenoreceptor is a regulator of the α-synuclein gene driving risk of Parkinson's disease. Science 357, 891–898 (2017)

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  1. Charlotte Ridler
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Ridler, C. Asthma drug could protect against PD. Nat Rev Neurol 13, 641 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2017.134

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