Treating patients of Parkinson’s disease fully may be possible in future . Recently, professor of IIT (ISM) Dhanbad in cooperation with the CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB), Kolkata and their team found a solution to this disease.
The leader of the IIT (ISM) team Dr UmakantaTripathy, who is a physicist, studies nonlinear behaviour of biomaterials using Z-scan technique by developing a machine for detection of Parkinson’s disease.
Tests are on with help of ICSR- IICB, said Dr Tripathi .
The IICB team that conducted tests is led by Dr. Krishnananda Chattopadhyay, a biophysicist.
Giving details Dr Tripathi said ,the tool can be used to screen blood plasma to find the aggregated toxic species of the protein, Alpha-Synuclein, for a possible diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.
The Alpha-Synuclein protein is also present in human blood. Besides, this tool can also be used for drug screening to find a suitable candidate to cure Parkinson’s disease.
DrTripathy said, accumulation of an inherent disordered proteins Alpha- synuclein aggregates in brain tissue that plays a pivotal role in the pathology and etiology of Parkinson’s Disease.
Aggregation of Alpha-synuclein has been found to be complex and heterogeneous. Because of the inherent complexity and large dynamic range (between a few microseconds to several days), it is difficult for the conventional biophysical and biochemical techniques to sample the entire time window of Alpha-synuclein aggregation.
Here, for the first time, we have introduced the Z-scan technique (developed in the laboratory of IIT- -ISM as a novel tool to investigate different conformations formed in the aggregation kinetics of Alpha-synuclein, said DrTripathy.
A switch in the sign of the refractive nonlinearity has been observed for the first time as a signature of the late oligomeric conformation, a prime suspect that triggers neuronal cell death associated with Parkinson’s Disease, and a device, which monitors this conveniently can be really useful for both pharmaceutical as well as clinical research, he said .
In the near future the drug that can inhibit the aggregation process of the Alpha-Synuclein protein from preventing the formation of the toxic species can be easily identified through the newly developed device,he said..
The team is excited about the observation because the late oligomers are supposed to be the most toxic species of ASyn and a method - which monitors these conveniently - can be really useful for both pharmaceutical and clinical research.
Dr. Chattopadhyay said, “ my team at CSIR-IICB are exploring ways to use the Z-scan method to study ASyn aggregates ex vivo using a suitable animal Parkinson’s disease model, while Dr. Tripathy and his team has planned to extend this method to other proteins and peptides to detect structures or conformations by systematic monitoring of their nonlinear values”.