Title:Immunotherapeutic Approaches for the Treatment of Neurodegenerative
Diseases: Challenges and Outcomes
Volume: 22
Issue: 3
Author(s): Sushma and Amal Chandra Mondal*
Affiliation:
- Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
Delhi-110067, India
Keywords:
Neurodegenerative diseases, amyloid-β, tau, α-synuclein, mhtt, alzheimer’s disease, parkinson’s disease, huntington’s disease.
Abstract:
Background: Neurodegenerative diseases, being rapidly increasing disorders and the
seventh leading cause of death worldwide, have been a great challenge for researchers, affecting
cognition, motor activity and other body functioning due to neurodegeneration. Several neurodegenerative
diseases are caused by aggregation of proteins which induce the alteration of neuronal
function leading to cell death. These proteins are amyloid-β peptide, tau, α-synuclein, and mHTT,
which cause Alzheimer’s disease, Frontotemporal dementia, Corticobasal degeneration, Progressive
supranuclear palsy, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple system atrophy, Dementia with Lewy-body
and Huntington’s disease. Currently available treatments only reduce symptoms and increase life
sustainability; however, they possess side effects and are ineffective in curing the diseases.
Objective: Literature survey of neurodegenerative diseases and immunotherapeutic approaches is
used to evaluate their pharmacological effects and future endeavours.
Methods: A literature search was performed to find the relevant articles related to neurodegenerative
diseases and immunotherapies. Clinical trials data were analysed from clinicaltrial.com.
Results: According to the literature study, it was found that researchers have explored the effect of
active and passive vaccines generated against amyloid-β, tau, α-synuclein and mHTT. Few clinical
trials have shown severe side effects and terminated, despite that, few of them produced desirable
effects for the treatment of AD and PD.
Conclusion: Several immunotherapeutic trials have shown promising outcomes against amyloid-β,
tau and α-synuclein. In addition, various preclinical studies against mHTT and prion proteins are
under scrutinization. These clinical outcomes indicate a promising role of immunotherapies against
neurodegenerative diseases.