As ETH Zurich announced Thursday, in a study newly published in the journal “Nature Structural and Molecular Biology,” the team led by ETH professor Paola Picotti presented for the first time 76 proteins that may be suitable as biomarkers for detecting Parkinson’s disease.
ETH researchers have found several proteins in the cerebrospinal fluid of healthy people and people with Parkinson’s disease, whose forms differ between healthy and sick people. Protein forms may be used in the future as a new category of biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease.
In the next step, the markers found will now need to be tested and thoroughly checked using larger patient groups. It is still too early for clinical diagnosis. But with the information available, markers are a very strong signal pointing to Parkinson’s disease.
That’s why Natalie de Souza, senior scientist in Picotti’s group and one of the study’s co-authors, said she is very confident the structural biomarker concept will prove itself. In the study, ETH researchers examined the spinal fluid of 50 healthy and 50 sick people.
(SDA)