Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) relates to defective mitochondrial quality control in the dopaminergic motor network. Genetic studies have revealed that PINK1 and Parkin mutations are indicative of a heightened propensity to PD onset,pinpointing mitophagy and inflammation as the culprit pathways involved in neuronal loss in the substantia nigra(SNpc). In a reciprocal manner, LRRK2 functions in the regulation of basal flux and inflammatory responses responsible for PINK1/Parkin-dependent mitophagy activation. Pharmacological intervention in these disease-modifying pathways may facilitate the development of novel PD therapeutics, despite the current lack of an established drug evaluation model. As such, we reviewed the feasibility of employing the versatile global Pink1 knockout (KO) rat model as a self-sufficient, spontaneous PD model for investigating both disease etiology and drug pharmacology. These rats retain clinical features encompassing basal mitophagic flux changes with PD progression. We demonstrate the versatility of this PD rat model based on the incorporation of additional experimental insults to recapitulate the proinflammatory responses observed in PD patients.
基金项目
KIZ-CUHK Joint Lab of Bioresources and Molecular Research of Common Diseases(4750378)
VC Discretionary Fund provided to the Hong Kong Branch of Chinese Academy of Science Center for Excellence in Animal Evoluti(Acc 8601011)
State Key Laboratory CUHK-Jinan MOE Key Laboratory for Regenerative medicine(2622009)
万方数据