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Regulatory T cells aid stem-cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease

Inflammation caused by surgical trauma limits the survival of transplanted stem-cell-derived neurons in rodent models of Parkinson’s disease. Co-transplanting immune cells called regulatory T cells improves the therapy’s efficacy.
  1. Qizhi Tang

    1. Qizhi Tang is in the Department of Surgery, Diabetes Center, Gladstone Institute of Genomic Immunology and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143, USA.

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Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a progressive loss of the neurons in the brain that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. After decades of research, it is now possible to generate dopamine-producing neurons from human stem cells, and this technology has raised hopes that transplanting such neurons into the brains of individuals with Parkinson’s disease might provide a cure. However, to be effective, the transplanted dopamine neurons would need to survive the implantation procedure and avoid immune rejection. Writing in Nature, Park et al.2 report that more than 90% of transplanted dopamine-producing neurons die within two weeks of implantation into animals because of a profound inflammatory response induced by the trauma of the surgery. The authors point to a possible way of tackling this problem.

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Nature 619, 470-472 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02177-5

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Competing Interests

Q.T. is a co-founder, shareholder and scientific adviser of Sonoma Biotherapeutics. She is a consultant and shareholder of eGenesis and Minutia, a consultant of Qihan Bio and Moderna, and a co-inventor of several patents on the therapeutic use of regulatory T cells.

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