Emerging pathways to neurodegeneration: Dissecting the critical molecular mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease

Abstract

Neurodegenerative diseases are usually sporadic in nature and commonly influenced by a wide range of genetic, life style and environmental factors. A unifying feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) is the abnormal accumulation and processing of mutant or damaged intra and extracellular proteins; this leads to neuronal vulnerability and dysfunction in the brain. Through a detailed review of ubiquitin proteasome, mRNA splicing, mitochondrial dysfunction, and oxidative stress pathway interrelation on neurodegeneration can improve the understanding of the disease mechanism. The identified pathways common to AD and PD nominate promising new targets for further studies, and as well as biomarkers. These insights suggested would likely provide major stimuli for developing unified treatment approaches to combat neurodegeneration. More broadly, pathways can serve as vehicles for integrating findings from diverse studies of neurodegeneration. The evidence examined in this review provides a brief overview of the current literature on significant pathways in promoting in AD, PD. Additionally, these insights suggest that biomarkers and treatment strategies may require simultaneous targeting of multiple components.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Biomarker; Mitochondrial dysfunction; Oxidative stress; Parkinson’s disease; Ubiquitin proteasome; mRNA splicing.