No Lewy pathology in monkeys with over 10 years of severe MPTP Parkinsonism.

The recent knowledge that 10 years after transplantation surviving human fetal neurons adopt the histopathology of Parkinson's disease suggests that Lewy body formation takes a decade to achieve. To determine whether similar histopathology occurs in 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-primate models over a similar timeframe, the brains of two adult monkeys made parkinsonian in their youth with intermittent injections of MPTP were studied. Despite substantial nigral degeneration and increased alpha-synuclein immunoreactivity within surviving neurons, there was no evidence of Lewy body formation. This suggests that MPTP-induced oxidative stress and inflammation per se are not sufficient for Lewy body formation, or Lewy bodies are human specific.

Lesion of the centromedian thalamic nucleus in MPTP-treated monkeys.

The caudal intralaminar nuclei are a major source of glutamatergic afferents to the basal ganglia. Experiments in the 6-hydroxydopamine rat model have shown that the parafascicular nucleus is overactive and its lesion alleviates basal ganglia neurochemical abnormalities associated with dopamine depletion. Accordingly, removal of this excitatory innervation of the basal ganglia could have a beneficial value in the parkinsonian state. To test this hypothesis, unilateral kainate-induced chemical ablation of the centromedian thalamic nucleus (CM) has been performed in MPTP-treated monkeys. Successful lesions restricted to the CM boundaries (n = 2) without spreading over other neighboring thalamic nuclei showed an initial, short-lasting, and mild change in the parkinsonian motor scale but no effect against levodopa-induced dyskinesias. The lack of significant and persistent motor improvement leads us to conclude that unilateral selective lesion of the CM alone cannot be considered as a suitable surgical approach for the treatment of PD or levodopa-induced dyskinesias. The role of the caudal intralaminar nuclei in the pathophysiology of movement disorders of basal ganglia origin remains to be clarified.

Bone-marrow-derived cell differentiation into microglia: a study in a progressive mouse model of Parkinson's disease.

The migration of peripheral bone-marrow-derived cells (BMDCs) to the brain was studied in a chronic mouse model of Parkinson's disease (PD). BMDCs expressing the enhanced green fluorescent protein (GFP) were aseptically obtained from C57 BL/6-EGFP-Tg mice and intravenously injected into C57 BL/6j mice which had received a total body irradiation of 8 Gy to induce bone marrow ablation. Implanted GFP-BMDCs replenished the bone marrow of irradiated mice, and progressively crossed the blood-brain barrier (BBB), penetrating different mesencephalic and telencephalic brain regions in the following months. The progressive degeneration of dopamine (DA) cells with a small daily dose (4 mg/kg/day for 20 days) of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydro-pyridine (MPTP) increased the penetration of GFP-BMDCs into the brain, particularly into those regions with marked DA innervation and which showed the clearest DA cell loss. BMDC penetration increased before the DA cell loss was evident and persisted for a long time after MPTP withdrawal. Under these conditions, most BMDCs differentiated into microglia (CD68 expression was observed in 50% of GFP cells 60 days after MPTP administration). BMDC-derived microglia showed morphological characteristics of cell activation, with the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor only being expressed in 3% of the cells. No differentiation into neurons (NeuN expression), astrocites (GFAP), cytotoxic lymphocytes (CD8) and T-helper lymphocytes (CD4) was observed. Taken together, the present data suggest that a significant portion of microglial cells is of a peripheral origin. Bearing in mind that microglial reaction is a significant part of the degenerative process in PD, the increase of BMDC penetration into DA-rich areas during DA cell degeneration and their differentiation into microglia suggest that cells coming across the BBB may participate in the neurodegeneration process. The precise role of such a cell inflow into the brain requires further study. Nevertheless, this may represent an opportunity to develop neuroprotective therapeutic strategies for PD.