The development cited in the Early Edition of the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" on Jan. 8 offers leads to developing drugs to treat the nerve and muscle-wasting disease that afflicts an estimated one million Americans or learn genetic factors which make some people more susceptible to the disease.
Dr. Guy Caldwell, associate professor of biological sciences at UA and co-author of the article about the research, said five genes from a protein linked to Parkinson's disease "significantly protect dopamine neurons from dying" in the worm models used in the research.
Too many copies of the genetic code for the protein called alpha-synuclein within the human DNA had been found to lead to Parkinson's. The protein repeatedly misfolds and kill the dopamine producing neurons in the brain. The death of the neurons leads to rigid and tremoring limbs, difficulty in movement and impaired reflexes.
In a special screening process, the researchers removed each of the worms' 867 genes that have the most significant influence on alpha-synuclein aggregation as the animals aged until they identified the five genes that keep dopamine neurons alive.
A similar research on humans is planned to validate the findings on the worms.
