Pluripotent Stem Cells for Modelling and Cell Therapy of Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

Studying pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease (PD), requires adequate disease models. The available patient’s material is limited to biological fluids and post mortem brain samples. Disease modeling and drug screening can be done in animal models, although this approach has its own limitations, since laboratory animals do not suffer from many neurodegenerative diseases, including PD. The use of neurons obtained by targeted differentiation from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) with known genetic mutations, as well as from carriers of sporadic forms of the disease, will allow to elucidate new components of the molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration. Such neuronal cultures can also serve as unique models for testing neuroprotective compounds and monitoring neurodegenerative changes against a background of various therapeutic interventions. In the future, dopaminergic neurons differentiated from iPSCs can be used for cell therapy of PD.