Will Targeting Alpha-Synuclein Lead to Effective Parkinson’s Disease Therapies?

Any attempts to treat Parkinson’s disease with therapies aimed at α-synuclein likely should be initiated as early as possible in the disease process, and biomarkers will be crucial to initiating timely treatment, Dr. Olanow noted.

“This, to me, is one of the most exciting periods in Parkinson’s therapeutics,” he said. Over the next decade, neurologists may see “a revolution of therapies directed at α-synuclein that may ultimately prove to be disease modifying and fundamentally change the nature of the disease.”

—Jake Remaly

Suggested Reading

Dehay B, Bourdenx M, Gorry P, et al. Targeting α-synuclein for treating Parkinson’s disease: mechanistic and therapeutic considerations. Lancet Neurol. 2015;14(8):855-866.

Olanow CW, Kordower JH. Targeting α-synuclein as a therapy for Parkinson’s disease: The battle begins. Mov Disord. 2017;32(2):203-207.

Olanow CW, Brundin P. Parkinson’s disease and alpha synuclein: is Parkinson’s disease a prion-like disorder? Mov Disord. 2013;28(1):31-40.

Schenk DB, Koller M, Ness DK, et al. First-in-human assessment of PRX002, an anti-α-synuclein monoclonal antibody, in healthy volunteers. Mov Disord. 2017;32(2):211-218.

Tran HT, Chung CH, Iba M, et al. α-synuclein immunotherapy blocks uptake and templated propagation of misfolded α-synuclein and neurodegeneration. Cell Rep. 2014;7(6):2054-2065.