Supplemental data for: Luquin et al. Neuron 22, 743-750. Parkinson’s disease is the second or third most common neurodegenerative disorder, striking 1% of the population over age 65 (an even greater percentage in later decades). L-DOPA therapy provides symptomatic relief during the early stages of the disease but does not affect disease progression or ameliorate the cognitive deficits. Transplantation of fetal mesencephalic neurons (using tissue from up to ten fetuses per transplant patient), however, has been effective in retarding the progression of the disease in some patients. Unfortunately, the logistics (not to mention the ethical issues involved) of a low transplant efficiency (less than 20% of the transplanted dopaminergic neurons survive), and the requirement for immunosuppression to prevent graft rejection, have made this approach impractical for the majority of severely affected patients. The other remaining treatment strategies have centered around lesions of the thalamus or globus pallidus to compensate for the imbalance of activity that results from loss of striatal dopaminergic neurons; unfortunately these lesions are not successful in amelioriating tremors and symptoms often recur with time. In the February 1998 issue of Neuron, Espejo et al. provided exciting evidence that dopamine-secreting cells from the carotid body can be transplanted into parkinsonian rats to cause a dramatic functional recovery of almost all the deficits produced by the 6-hydroxy dopamine lesion. In the April 1999 issue of Neuron, Luquin et al. take a large step toward making autotransplants a viable option for humans, especially those with bradykinesia. In this study, they demonstrate that chronically MPTP-treated macaque monkeys (with bilateral striatal lesions) that receive autotransplants of carotid body cell aggregates to the left putamen (a region of the striatum) show striking improvements in mobility, and fine motor tasks of the right hand (controlled by the hemisphere that received the transplants) lasting up to 5 months after transplantation. Unlike the preceding study in rodents (which do not tolerate bilateral striatal lesions), which could not rule out recovery arising from migration of tyrosine hydroxylase-positive neurons from the unlesioned hemisphere to the side of the transplanted carotid body cell aggregates, this study demonstrates an increase in tyrosine hydroxylase positive neurons only in the side that received the carotid body grafts. The use of cells of the carotid body is a creative experimental strategy for circumventing the problem of low transplant efficiency, since these cells normally function to sense low O2 levels in the blood and thus are likely to be hearty in poorly vascularized transplants. Intrastriatal autografts of carotid body tissue for treatment of Parkinson’s disease may offer several advantages. They are technically simple (compared to the other surgical therapies of pallidotomy, thalmotomy, or implantation of a high frequency stimulator), require only part of one carotid body, and do not cause side effects since humans can function well with the spared carotid body. This study shows short-term amelioration in a primate model of Parkinson’s disease. Further studies are needed to determine the longevity of the recovery in MPTP-treated primates with bilateral striatal autotransplants, and ultimately whether this therapy is viable in humans. -- ............................................................................................ Ray Strand mailto:[log in to unmask] ............................................................................................ ...on the edge of the prairie abyss ......................