At present, the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease is mainly based on clinical standards, but the sensitivity of clinical standards is often limited before most dopaminergic neurons are lost. Recently, in a research report published in Nature Aging titled “DOPA decarboxylase is an emerging biomarker for Parkinsonian disorders including preclinical Lewy body disease”, scientists from institutions such as the Caroline College in Sweden found through research that, the levels of the marker DOPA decarboxylase (DCC) in Parkinson’s disease patients and other diseases that cause dopamine deficiency in the brain increase. However, in other brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, the level of this marker is normal. Researchers have even noticed that DCC levels in Parkinson’s disease patients have already increased years before symptoms appear.
Researcher Oskar Hansson said that we used advanced technology to simultaneously determine thousands of proteins in a small sample. We studied 428 individuals to identify specific biomarkers that can reveal whether the dopamine system in the brain of patients with motor or cognitive impairments is damaged; The results showed that if the patient’s dopamine system was disrupted, the level of the biomarker DCC in their body would increase. No matter which stage of the disease the patient is in, an important finding currently obtained by researchers is that this biomarker can be measured in the blood, and the level of biomarkers in the blood will significantly increase, especially in Parkinson’s disease.
The researchers’ findings were validated in another group of 152 participants. In addition, after analyzing plasma samples from 174 individuals, they found that the levels of novel biomarkers in their blood significantly increased, and damage to the dopamine system in the body’s brain could also be detected using PET cameras. However, this method is expensive and complex, only specialized memory clinics can provide it.
Researchers have stated that although the symptoms of various neurodegenerative brain diseases are relatively similar, there is often a high risk of misdiagnosis in clinical practice, which can lead to improper treatment. Therefore, finding safer diagnostic tools and methods may be particularly important, and the focus of this article is also on this; In addition, researchers have shown that in the future, different brain diseases will be treated before their symptoms become apparent, and blood markers will help scientists become suitable individuals in a simple and cost-effective way.
In summary, the results of this study suggest that DCC may play an important role in clinical practice and serve as a biomarker for dopamine dysfunction to help detect human Parkinson’s disease (even in the preclinical stage) and predict the progression of clinical Lewy disease.
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Reference
Pereira, J.B., Kumar, A., Hall, S. et al. DOPA decarboxylase is an emerging biomarker for Parkinsonian disorders including preclinical Lewy body disease. Nat Aging (2023).doi：10.1038/s43587-023-00478-y