New biomarker offers hope for early Parkinson’s diagnosis

A wrongly folded protein facilitates the reliable diagnosis, even in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease in body fluids.

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that is usually diagnosed at the late stage on the basis of clinical symptoms, mainly engine disorders. At this point, however, the brain is already seriously and irreparably damaged. Moreover, the diagnosis is difficult and often incorrect because the disease takes many forms and symptoms overlap with other disorders. Researchers from the Prodi Center for Protein Diagnostics at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and the biotech company now have now discovered a biomarker in the spinal fluid that facilitates a reliable diagnosis at an early stage and can shed light on the progression of the disease and the effect of a therapy. They report their findings in the magazine EMBO Molecular Medicine from 25 April 2025.

Parkinson’s disease – a not to stop

Parkinson’s disease is characterized by the loss of dopaminergic nerve cells in the brain, which usually leads to increasing motor limitations as the symptoms progress. Dopamine supplements can compensate for the loss and temporarily relieve the symptoms. The misfolding of the most important protein alpha synuclein (αsyn) from A-Helic structures to β-sheet-rich structures plays a crucial role in the development of Parkinson’s disease.

These misfits make the protein sticky, which leads to the formation of larger complexes, so -called oligomeren. The oligomers then produce long fibrillary filaments and cause the aggregation of these filaments in macroscopically large Lewy bodies in the brain. “

Professor Klaus Garwert, founder and director of Prodi and CEO of Betasense

Advanced platform technology

In two independent clinical cohorts with a total of 134 participants, the based on Bochum researchers demonstrated that this misfolding of Asyn in body fluids is a viable biomarker for the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, with a sensitivity and specificity of more than 90 percent. The research was conducted using Cerebrospinal Liquid monsters of patients in the Parkinson’s centers in Bochum (St. Josef Hospital, Professor Lars Tönges, Professor Ralf Gold) and Kassel (Paracelsus-Esena-Kauer, Dr. Sandrina). Professor). The measurements were performed using the patented IRS technology (immuno infrared sensor) of Betasense GmbH.

Betasense has already successfully implemented the IRS technology for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease. In this case it was shown that the misfolding of the biomarker AP can indicate the risk of Alzheimer’s dementia at a later stage with high accuracy up to 17 years before clinical diagnosis. “We have now transferred this approach to Parkinson’s for the misunderstanding of αyn,” Klaus Gerwert emphasizes.

Development of Parkinson’s drugs

In addition to diagnostic applications, technology can also help to develop new active substances and to prove their efficacy in clinical studies.