Lewy body–like pathology in long-term embryonic nigral transplants in Parkinson's disease

Nature Medicine volume 14, pages504–506(2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Fourteen years after transplantation into the striatum of an individual with Parkinson's disease, grafted nigral neurons were found to have Lewy body–like inclusions that stained positively for α-synuclein and ubiquitin and to have reduced immunostaining for dopamine transporter. These pathological changes suggest that Parkinson's disease is an ongoing process that can affect grafted cells in the striatum in a manner similar to host dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra. These findings have implications for cell-based therapies and for understanding the cause of Parkinson's disease.

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Figure 1: Long-term graft viability in Parkinson's disease.
Figure 2: Parkinson's disease–like pathology in long-term nigral grafts.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank G. Folino for histological assistance.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurological Sciences and Center for Brain Repair, Rush University Medical Center, 1735 West Harrison Street, Chicago, 60612, Illinois, USA

    Jeffrey H Kordower & Yaping Chu

  2. Department of Neurology, University of South Florida, 2 Columbia Drive, Tampa, 33606, Florida, USA

    Robert A Hauser

  3. Department of Neurosurgery, University of South Florida, 2 Columbia Drive, Tampa, 33606, Florida, USA

    Thomas B Freeman

  4. Department of Neurology, 1 Annenberg Plaza, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, 10029, NY, USA

    C Warren Olanow

Authors
  1. Jeffrey H Kordower
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  2. Yaping Chu
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  3. Robert A Hauser
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  4. Thomas B Freeman
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  5. C Warren Olanow
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Contributions

J.H.K. and Y.C. performed the histological analysis. R.A.H. performed the clinical assessments. T.B.F. did brain ascertainment. J.H.K., R.A.H., T.B.F. and C.W.O. wrote the manuscript. C.W.O., T.B.F. and J.H.K. designed the original open label transplant trial. T.B.F. and C.W.O. implemented the original clinical transplant trial.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeffrey H Kordower.

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Competing interests

J.H.K. is a consultant for Ceregene, Inc., Brainstorm, Inc. and Nupathe, Inc. C.W.O. is a consultant for Ceregene, Inc. These companies could benefit from the results of this study.

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Kordower, J., Chu, Y., Hauser, R. et al. Lewy body–like pathology in long-term embryonic nigral transplants in Parkinson's disease. Nat Med 14, 504–506 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm1747

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