Cell Reprogramming and neuronal differentiation applied to neurodegenerative diseases: Focus on Parkinson Disease

SHIRLEY D. WENKER; MARIANA CASALÍA; VERÓNICA CAVALIERE CANDEDO; JUAN CRUZ CASABONA; FERNANDO JUAN PITOSSI

FEBS LETTERS

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2015

0014-5793

Adult cells from patients can be reprogrammed to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) whichsuccessively can be used to obtain specific cells such as neurons. This remarkable breakthroughrepresents a new way of studying diseases and brought new therapeutic perspectives in the field of regenerative medicine. This is particular true in the neurology field, where few techniques areamenable to study the affected tissue of the patient during illness progression, in addition to thelack of neuroprotective therapies for many diseases.In this review we discuss the advantages and unresolved issues of cell reprogramming and neu-ronal differentiation. We reviewed evidence using iPSCs-derived neurons from neurologicalpatients. Focusing on data obtained from Parkinson?s disease (PD) patients, we show thatiPSC-derived neurons possess morphological and functional characteristics of this disease and builda case for the use of this technology to study PD and other neuropathologies while disease is in pro-gress. These data show the enormous impact that this new technology starts to have on differentpurposes such as the study and design of future therapies of neurological disease, especially PD.Ó 2015 Federation of European Biochemical Societies.