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Dopamine neurons implanted into people with Parkinson's disease survive without pathology for 14 years

Nature Medicine volume 14, pages 507–509 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Postmortem analysis of five subjects with Parkinson's disease 9–14 years after transplantation of fetal midbrain cell suspensions revealed surviving grafts that included dopamine and serotonin neurons without pathology. These findings are important for the understanding of the etiopathogenesis of midbrain dopamine neuron degeneration and future use of cell replacement therapies.

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Figure 1: Ventral midbrain cells transplanted as cell suspensions in the putamina of people with Parkinson's disease survive for up to 14 years and show immunoreactivity for dopaminergic and serotoninergic markers.
Figure 2: Transplanted dopamine neurons in people with Parkinson's disease do not contain Lewy bodies.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Canadian Institute of Health Research, Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre (I.M.), US National Institutes of Health NINDS Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence (P50 NS 39793 to O.I. and NS 053488 to J.Q.T.), The Michael Stern Foundation (O.I.), The Consolidated Anti-Aging Foundation (O.I.), The Orchard Foundation (O.I.) and the Harold and Ronna Cooper Family (O.I.). Fellowship support to K.M. was provided by the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation and Parkinson Society Canada. We also thank O. Cooper for evaluation of tissue sections from study subjects.

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Author notes

  1. Ivar Mendez and Angel Viñuela: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Neurosurgery and Departments of Anatomy & Neurobiology and Pharmacology, Dalhousie University and Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre, 1976 Summer Street, Halifax, B3H 3A7, Nova Scotia, Canada

    Ivar Mendez, Karim Mukhida, Harold Robertson & Renn Holness

  2. Harvard University and McLean Hospital, US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence, 115 Mill Street, Belmont, 02478, Massachusetts, USA

    Angel Viñuela, Arnar Astradsson, Penelope Hallett, Travis Tierney & Ole Isacson

  3. McGill University and Montreal Neurological Institute, McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, 3801 University Street, Montreal, H3A 2B4, Quebec, Canada

    Alain Dagher

  4. Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, Institute on Aging of the University of Pennsylvania, NINDS Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence, 3600 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, 19104, Pennsylvania, USA

    John Q Trojanowski

Authors
  1. Ivar Mendez
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Contributions

I.M. and A.V. designed research, performed research, analyzed data and wrote the paper. A.A. and P.H. performed research, analyzed data and wrote the paper. K.M. analyzed data and wrote the paper. H.R., T.T., R.H. and A.D. performed research and analyzed data. J.Q.T. performed neuropathology staining, analyzed raw data, evaluated and interpreted data and wrote the paper. O.I. designed research, performed research, analyzed raw data, evaluated and interpreted data and wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ole Isacson.

Supplementary information

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Supplementary Tables 1 and 2, Supplementary Fig. 1, Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Results (PDF 387 kb)

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Mendez, I., Viñuela, A., Astradsson, A. et al. Dopamine neurons implanted into people with Parkinson's disease survive without pathology for 14 years. Nat Med 14, 507–509 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm1752

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