Therapeutic Applications of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells in Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is commonly known as an idiopathic, incurable, and progressive neurodegenerative disorder whose patients exhibit three main symptoms: bradykinesia, rigidity, and rest tremor. Current research has shown that the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the nigrostriatal pathway plays a crucial role in the emergence of the three symptoms in PD patients. Even though the number of PD patients is becoming increasingly more prevalent, the mechanisms behind the disease are not well understood, which, in turn, makes clinical treatment increasingly difficult. In order to better elucidate the cause of PD, new methods and techniques are necessary to identify all various factors that contribute to the disorder. The emergence of stem cells, specifically induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), has provided a new avenue to analyze PD. Due to the difficulty in obtaining affected human dopaminergic neurons, the iPSC system gives researchers the opportunity to derive dopamine neurons and create a model in order to be able to directly study all factors contributing to the development of PD. Due to increased accessibility to human dopamine neurons, iPSC technology will hopefully enable researchers to study the intricacies surrounding PD and can eventually pave the way towards novel clinical treatments for PD.