Colorado researchers have figured out how a gene associated with Parkinson’s disease works, a discovery that could lead to drugs that prevent the disease’s devastating progression, they reported Wednesday.
In Parkinson’s victims, dopamine cells in the brain die or are damaged, and that can eventually erode a person’s ability to walk, talk and perform other basic functions.
Curt Freed and Wenbo Zhou at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center studied DJ-1, one of three genes associated with Parkinson’s.
When it works properly, they found, the gene tells a cell to produce an antioxidant called glutathione, which helps protect brain cells from a type of chemical stress.
DJ-1 also boosts cells’ production of a protein that cleans up chemical damage, Freed and Zhou reported in the current issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
When the DJ-1 gene is mutated, the chemical stress takes a toll on brain cells.
“If we can find drugs that increase activity of the DJ-1 gene, we may be able to stop the relentless progression of Parkinson’s disease even in patients who don’t have mutations in the gene,” Freed said.
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-820-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
