Premotor biomarkers for Parkinson's disease - a promising direction of research

Brian R Haas,Tessandra H Stewart,Jing Zhang

doi:10.1186/2047-9158-1-11

Brian R Haas, Tessandra H Stewart + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/2047-9158-1-11

Copy DOI

Abstract

The second most serious neurodegenerative disease is Parkinson’s disease (PD). Over the past several decades, a strong body of evidence suggests that PD can begin years before the hallmark clinical motor symptoms appear. Biomarkers for PD are urgently needed to differentiate between neurodegenerative disorders, screen novel therapeutics, and predict eventual clinical PD before the onset of symptoms. Some clinical evaluations and neuroimaging techniques have been developed in the last several years with some success in this area. Moreover, other strategies have been utilized to identify biochemical and genetic markers associated with PD leading to the examination of PD progression and pathogenesis in cerebrospinal fluid, blood, or saliva. Finally, interesting results are surfacing from preliminary studies using known PD-associated genetic mutations to assess potential premotor PD biomarkers. The current review highlights recent advances and underscores areas of potential advancement.

Highlights

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a common and incapacitating neurodegenerative disease which affects the human population worldwide [1,2,3]
Though not an exhaustive list, we focus here on some of the most promising potential clinical premotor PD biomarkers, namely, rapid eye movement (REM) behavior disorder (RBD), bowel dysfunction, olfactory deficits, and mood disorders
Premotor PD biomarker assessment and identification will use changes in the levels of known biochemical markers, i.e., α-synuclein, uric acid, DJ-1, in addition to others identified through unbiased profiling

Summary

Introduction

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a common and incapacitating neurodegenerative disease which affects the human population worldwide [1,2,3]. To determine whether these early olfactory symptoms might prove useful as a premotor biomarker for PD, a number of studies have examined olfaction in early or asymptomatic patients. Future work should focus on using a combination of clinical premotor biomarkers to enrich patient populations for neuroimaging and biochemical screening and assess in tandem multiple clinical symptoms for correlation for developing PD later in life, along with coupling premotor clinical signs with biochemical markers, neuroimaging, and genetic testing (see below for more discussion on the topic).

Results

Conclusion