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Lack of functional relevance of isolated cell damage in transplants of Parkinson’s disease patients

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Abstract

Postmortem analyses from clinical neural transplantation trials of several subjects with Parkinson’s disease revealed surviving grafted dopaminergic neurons after more than a decade. A subset of these subjects displayed isolated dopaminergic neurons within the grafts that contained Lewy body-like structures. In this review, we discuss why this isolated cell damage is unlikely to affect the overall graft function and how we can use these observations to help us to understand age-related neurodegeneration and refine our future cell replacement therapies.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Neuroregeneration Research, NINDS Udall Parkinson’s Disease Research Center of Excellence, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, MRC 130, 115 Mill Street, Belmont, MA, 02478, USA

    Oliver Cooper, Arnar Astradsson, Penny Hallett & Ole Isacson

  2. Department of Pharmacology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Harold Robertson

  3. Division of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience, Queen Elizabeth II Health Science Center, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Ivar Mendez

Authors
  1. Oliver Cooper
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  2. Arnar Astradsson
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  3. Penny Hallett
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  4. Harold Robertson
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  5. Ivar Mendez
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  6. Ole Isacson
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Correspondence to Ole Isacson.

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Cooper, O., Astradsson, A., Hallett, P. et al. Lack of functional relevance of isolated cell damage in transplants of Parkinson’s disease patients. J Neurol 256 (Suppl 3), 310–316 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-009-5242-z

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