Blood Test Developed for Parkinson’s Disease

Currently no clinical biomarker test exists for Parkinson's and the only means of diagnosis is a neurological examination and by the time patients develop symptoms and undergo the examination, large numbers of vital brain cells have already been destroyed.

An estimated 80,000 Australians and more than 6.3 million people worldwide are affected by Parkinson's, which can severely impair mobility and quality of life. Diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's have long been believed to involve malfunction of cell mitochondria, which are the cells' energy factories.

Scientists at the La Trobe University (Melbourne, Australia) have developed blood test that will enable doctors to detect with unprecedented reliability the abnormal metabolism of blood cells in people with Parkinson's, which will allow them to provide treatment options much earlier. The blood test has been trialed on a small test group of 38 people (29 with Parkinson's and a control group of nine) with great reliability. When the next stage of testing is complete, the sample will total about 100 people: 70 with Parkinson's and a control group of 30.

About a decade ago, the team discovered that a permanently switched on 'alarm' at the cellular level could be responsible for symptoms in many incurable conditions involving defective mitochondria. This led to an important new understanding of how mitochondrial defects damage cells, namely that it is a signaling disorder, rather than a fundamental energy insufficiency as previously thought. The scientists demonstrated for the first time, using a laboratory organism called Dictyostelium, that an energy- and stress-sensing protein, known as 5' adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK), was permanently activated in mitochondrially diseased cells. When energy production was compromised, this protein began signaling and interfering with other signaling pathways, causing cell functions to shut down.

Paul Robert Fisher, PhD, a professor of Microbiology who led the study, said, “This is a really exciting discovery. Parkinson's is a debilitating disorder and currently there is no cure. However, early diagnosis and treatment could enable better outcomes and a greater quality of life for people with the condition, which will be of great benefit to sufferers and their families. In people with Parkinson's, something causes their cells to become 'hyperactive', which in turn increases the production of toxic oxygen by-products and over time damages vital cells in the brain.”

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La Trobe University