A new study has found that a misfolded alpha-synuclein (aSyn) protein can be used to detect persons with Parkinson’s disease. The discovery was made after researchers successfully developed a technology created by researcher at UTHealth Houston. UTHealth’s McGovern Medical School professor, Claudio Soto, PhD, is the one who headed the study with financial funding from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. The findings were published in Lancet Neurology.
Parkinson’s disease is identified by the presence of alpha-synuclein or aSyn. When this protein gets corrupted, it turns misfolded and start to clump together. These clumps then poison the healthy nerve cells that are responsible in controlling motor skills and other brain functions. According to Claudio Soto, this breakthrough discovery is a “game changer” in the efforts to diagnose Parkinson’s.
Claudio Soto created the Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification or PMCA – also known as seed amplification assay (SAA) – for the Parkinson’s diagnosis. Along with Mohammad Shahnawaz, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at McGovern Medical School, Soto also invented a patented technology that utilizes aSyn-SAA for survey. UTHealth Houston and Amprion, the biotech company which Soto is a Co-Founder, Chief Scientific Officer, and Director of, have collaborated in order to make this research available to the public.
To do the research, 1,123 participants from 33 centers all around the world were gathered between July 2010 and July 2019. 545 of these participants were Parkinson’s patients, 163 were healthy individuals, 54 had evidence of the disease on the brain scans, and 310 had genetic mutations that could cause Parkinson’s. With this data collection labeled as the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), it was sponsored by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
The result of the study, after it was done using aSyn-SAA test, showed a diagnosis of Parkinson’s in 87% within the patients. Simultaneously, the healthy individuals were correctly identified 96% of the time. The test also shows that people with LRRK2 gene mutation (a gene that causes a Parkinson’s-like disease) was not affected with aSyn. Moreover, the positive detection rate of Parkinson’s in those who have lost their sense of smell was the highest with 98.6%.
Most rewarding of all though, is that 86% of the pre-symptomatic cases of Parkinson’s were detected with aSyn-SAA years before the clinical symptoms would be apparent. This opens an avenue for an earlier detection.
Amprion is a Texas-based biotechnology company, founded by Professor Soto as an effort to improve the diagnostic and therapeutic options for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and more. It became a leader in the advancement of SAA platform of misfolded protein kinetics and aptamers, and is majorly focused on bringing the research and knowledge created to the public.
Claudio Soto, PhD, is the professor and Huffington Foundation Distinguished Chair in the Department of Neurology at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. He is credited with the discoveries of using misfolded proteins and the amplification process in understanding the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s, and the development of desperate-needed therapies. He and Mohammad Shahnawaz, PhD are inventors of a patented technology to use aSyn-SAA for Parkinson’s diagnosis. Through UTHealth Houston and Amprion’s collaborative efforts, they as hope to bring the discoveries to the benefit of all.
