The German Research Foundation is funding a project on this question from the Institute for Neurogenetics at the University of Lübeck.
A research group from Lübeck and Hamburg led by Priv.-Doz. Dr. Joanne Trinh is now investigating this assumption. Her research project “What influence does COVID-19 have on the development of Parkinson's disease?” is funded by the German Research Foundation with 347,750 euros (project number 490933425).
The brain pathology of COVID-19 is characterized by specific neuroimmunological activation with astro- or microgliosis and increased inflammatory signals. In addition, the virus has an affinity for the basal ganglia in the brainstem and has been shown to attack the nervous system and cause neurological symptoms.
Although there are case reports of COVID-19 patients developing Parkinsonism within weeks of contracting the virus, there is currently only speculative evidence of a link between COVID-19 and Parkinson's disease.
Because the connection between COVID-19 and Parkinson's disease will only become clear in the coming years or decades, it is important to investigate whether and how COVID-19 affects the disease. The group with Priv.-Doz. Dr. Joanne Trinh and Prof. Dr. Christine Klein from the Institute for Neurogenetics at the University of Lübeck and Prof. Dr. Markus Glatzel from the Institute of Neuropathology at the Eppendorf University Hospital in Hamburg assumes that examining the brains of COVID-19 patients and COVID-19 patients with concurrent Parkinson's disease compared to Parkinson's patients and control subjects will provide information about a possible will provide context and identify pathways that are active in COVID-19 modulated Parkinson's disease and serve as biomarkers.
Integration and identification of biological signaling pathways
The researchers hypothesize that neuroimmunological activation in COVID-19 leads to accelerated neurodegeneration. They aim to compare the neuropathology and disrupted biological pathways of Parkinson's patients and controls with and without COVID-19 to understand these mechanisms.
The group will study neuroimmune activation and pathways of protein folding and deposition as well as protein degradation in different brain regions of the substantia nigra (affected region in Parkinson's disease) using single-cell RNA sequencing and global transcriptomics.
The aim is to integrate and identify biological pathways active in COVID-19 and Parkinson's disease and to evaluate the biomarker potential of the obtained marker profiles in living Parkinson's patients after COVID-19 to predict Parkinson's outcomes. By thoroughly investigating whether there is a link between COVID-19 and Parkinson's disease, this proposal will contribute to understanding the risk that SARS-CoV-2 infection poses in accelerating subclinical Parkinson's disease.
Priv.-Doz. Dr. Joanne Trinh, Prof. Dr. Christine Klein and Prof. Dr. Markus Glatzel have complementary expertise to address this scientific problem and thoroughly investigate the short- and long-term effects of COVID-19 on Parkinson's disease.
The research group
led by Dr.
Trinh's Integrative Omics team to analyze large data sets is also receiving more than $400,000 in funding from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Research into Genes and Environmental Factors in Parkinson's Disease. In a recent publication in the renowned journal “Brain”, the research group of Dr. Trinh identified a novel somatic modifier in X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism (Mosaic divergent repeat interruptions in : German health portal
This might also be of interest: COVID-19: New insights into the processes of recovery after a serious illness
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