Parkinson’s disease: asparagine endopeptidase as a potential drug target

Recent findings published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology suggest that the same enzyme that causes the formation of sticky neurotoxic aggregates of tau in Alzheimer’s disease could also have the same effect on alpha-synuclein in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Previous research by Keqiang Ye, Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine (GA, USA), and his colleagues indicated that tau is trimmed and cut down by the enzyme asparagine endopeptidase (AEP).  Researchers also observed beneficial effects in animal PD models when AEP was inhibited. In this new study, also led by Ye, researchers investigated the...