Study of the neuroregeneration process triggered by bradykinin in the animal model of Parkinson's Disease

• Grant number: 20/07609-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): July 01, 2020
• Effective date (End): June 30, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biochemistry - Molecular Biology
• Principal Investigator: Alexander Henning Ulrich
• Grantee: Thomas Eduardo Dias Silva
• Host Institution: Instituto de Química (IQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 18/07366-4 - Purine and kinin receptors as targets of study and therapeutic interventions in neurological diseases, AP.TEM

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease, characterized in part by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in two parts of the brain - the substantia nigra and its projections into the striatum - causing various motor, cognitive and sensory deficits. Currently, the most used treatment is the administration of L-DOPA. However, this drug has limited efficacy and several side effects. Previous work by our group has shown that BK is involved in the neural differentiation of neural progenitor cells by an autocrine loop that results in B2BKR activation (Martins et al., 2008). In addition, we recently demonstrated that the injection of BK leads to neuroregeneration in animals submitted to lesion of the nigrostriatal pathway by 6-OHDA in vivo. Caetano et al. showed that B2BKR plays an important neuroprotective role in an animal model of Alzheimer's Disease (Caetano et al., 2015), which corroborates our findings, allowing for further investigations on the effect of B2BKR and bradykinin on neuroregeneration in animal model of Parkinson's Disease. Recently, Luzatti et al. (2014) demonstrated that neural progenitor cells, residing in the subventricular zone (SVZ) and in the hippocampal dentate gyrus, migrate to the striatum, forming areas of active neurogenesis and neuronal maturation (Luzatti et al., 2014 ). Thus, we intend to evaluate the pattern of neurogenesis triggered by BK in animals submitted to lesion of the nigrostriatal pathway by 6-OHDA by the incorporation of BrdU.