TY - JOUR A1 - Müller, Thomas A1 - Mueller, Bernhard Klaus A1 - Riederer, Peter T1 - Perspective: Treatment for disease modification in chronic neurodegeneration JF - Cells N2 - Symptomatic treatments are available for Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. An unmet need is cure or disease modification. This review discusses possible reasons for negative clinical study outcomes on disease modification following promising positive findings from experimental research. It scrutinizes current research paradigms for disease modification with antibodies against pathological protein enrichment, such as α-synuclein, amyloid or tau, based on post mortem findings. Instead a more uniform regenerative and reparative therapeutic approach for chronic neurodegenerative disease entities is proposed with stimulation of an endogenously existing repair system, which acts independent of specific disease mechanisms. The repulsive guidance molecule A pathway is involved in the regulation of peripheral and central neuronal restoration. Therapeutic antagonism of repulsive guidance molecule A reverses neurodegeneration according to experimental outcomes in numerous disease models in rodents and monkeys. Antibodies against repulsive guidance molecule A exist. First clinical studies in neurological conditions with an acute onset are under way. Future clinical trials with these antibodies should initially focus on well characterized uniform cohorts of patients. The efficiency of repulsive guidance molecule A antagonism and associated stimulation of neurogenesis should be demonstrated with objective assessment tools to counteract dilution of therapeutic effects by subjectivity and heterogeneity of chronic disease entities. Such a research concept will hopefully enhance clinical test strategies and improve the future therapeutic armamentarium for chronic neurodegeneration. KW - neurodegeneration KW - repulsive guidance molecule A KW - neuroprotection KW - repair KW - oxidative stress KW - apoptosis KW - neurogenesis Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-236644 SN - 2073-4409 VL - 10 IS - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wulf, Maximilian A1 - Barkovits, Katalin A1 - Schork, Karin A1 - Eisenacher, Martin A1 - Riederer, Peter A1 - Gerlach, Manfred A1 - Eggers, Britta A1 - Marcus, Katrin T1 - The proteome of neuromelanin granules in dementia with Lewy bodies JF - Cells N2 - Neuromelanin granules (NMGs) are organelle-like structures present in the human substantia nigra pars compacta. In addition to neuromelanin, NMGs contain proteins, lipids and metals. As NMG-containing dopaminergic neurons are preferentially lost in Parkinson’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), it is assumed that NMGs may play a role in neurodegenerative processes. Until now, this role is not completely understood and needs further investigation. We therefore set up an exploratory proteomic study to identify differences in the proteomic profile of NMGs from DLB patients (n = 5) compared to healthy controls (CTRL, n = 5). We applied a laser microdissection and mass-spectrometry-based approach, in which we used targeted mass spectrometric experiments for validation. In NMG-surrounding (SN\(_{Surr.}\)) tissue of DLB patients, we found evidence for ongoing oxidative damage and an impairment of protein degradation. As a potentially disease-related mechanism, we found α-synuclein and protein S100A9 to be enriched in NMGs of DLB cases, while the abundance of several ribosomal proteins was significantly decreased. As S100A9 is known to be able to enhance the formation of toxic α-synuclein fibrils, this finding points towards an involvement of NMGs in pathogenesis, however the exact role of NMGs as either neuroprotective or neurotoxic needs to be further investigated. Nevertheless, our study provides evidence for an impairment of protein degradation, ongoing oxidative damage and accumulation of potentially neurotoxic protein aggregates to be central mechanisms of neurodegeneration in DLB. KW - neuromelanin granules KW - neurodegeneration KW - dementia with Lewy bodies KW - proteomics KW - stress granules KW - substantia nigra pars compacta Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-297465 SN - 2073-4409 VL - 11 IS - 22 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ziegler, Georg C. A1 - Almos, Peter A1 - McNeill, Rhiannon V. A1 - Jansch, Charline A1 - Lesch, Klaus‐Peter T1 - Cellular effects and clinical implications of SLC2A3 copy number variation JF - Journal of Cellular Physiology N2 - SLC2A3 encodes the predominantly neuronal glucose transporter 3 (GLUT3), which facilitates diffusion of glucose across plasma membranes. The human brain depends on a steady glucose supply for ATP generation, which consequently fuels critical biochemical processes, such as axonal transport and neurotransmitter release. Besides its role in the central nervous system, GLUT3 is also expressed in nonneural organs, such as the heart and white blood cells, where it is equally involved in energy metabolism. In cancer cells, GLUT3 overexpression contributes to the Warburg effect by answering the cell's increased glycolytic demands. The SLC2A3 gene locus at chromosome 12p13.31 is unstable and prone to non‐allelic homologous recombination events, generating multiple copy number variants (CNVs) of SLC2A3 which account for alterations in SLC2A3 expression. Recent associations of SLC2A3 CNVs with different clinical phenotypes warrant investigation of the potential influence of these structural variants on pathomechanisms of neuropsychiatric, cardiovascular, and immune diseases. In this review, we accumulate and discuss the evidence how SLC2A3 gene dosage may exert diverse protective or detrimental effects depending on the pathological condition. Cellular states which lead to increased energetic demand, such as organ development, proliferation, and cellular degeneration, appear particularly susceptible to alterations in SLC2A3 copy number. We conclude that better understanding of the impact of SLC2A3 variation on disease etiology may potentially provide novel therapeutic approaches specifically targeting this GLUT. KW - copy number variation KW - energy metabolism KW - glucose transporter KW - GLUT3 KW - neurodegeneration KW - neurodevelopment KW - SLC2A3 Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-218009 VL - 235 IS - 12 SP - 9021 EP - 9036 ER -