Selective degeneration of dopamine neurons in Parkinson’s disease: emerging roles of altered calcium homeostasis and nucleolar function

Abstract

Abstract Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease. Its classic major motor-symptoms are caused by the progressive loss of dopamine in the striatum, and of dopamine (DA) releasing neurons in the midbrain, particularly within the Substantia nigra (SN). The cause for PD is still unclear, hampering the development of curative therapies. However multiple genetic and environmental PD trigger factors have been identified, pointing to a common, mutually interdependent pathomechanism of cell-specific metabolic dysfunction and altered gene expression. Here, we summarize and discuss these emerging PD-pathomechanisms, that could provide novel potential therapeutic targets, with a focus on altered Ca2+ homeostasis and nucleolar function. We discuss how animal models with impaired nucleolar ribosomal RNA synthesis can enable identification of novel cell-specific vulnerability factors, and how complex homeostatic adaptation of SN DA neurons could enable a flexible adjustment of their functional activity to metabolic needs, but also might render them particularly vulnerable to degenerative triggers and cell-death in PD.