Parkinson’s disease biomarker identified in urine samples

Written by Lauren Pulling

Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB; AL, USA) have identified a new biomarker for Parkinson’s disease (PD), found in patient urine samples frozen in storage. The team hope that the biomarker, a phosphorylated protein that correlates with the severity of the disease, could be used as a guide for future treatments and drug monitoring. “Nobody thought we'd be able to measure the activity of this huge protein called LRRK2 (pronounced lark two) in biofluids since it is usually found inside neurons in the brain,” explained Andrew West (UAB), lead author of the biomarker studies, published in Neurology...

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