Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic Genome Center have successfully applied Advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) Genetics models to Parkinson’s disease. Researchers identified genetic factors in progression and medicines approved by the FDA that may be reused for PD treatment.
The NPJ Parkinson’s disease Report uses an approach called “Systems Biology”, which uses AI to integrate and analyze several different forms of information of genetic, proteomic, pharmaceutical and patient data sets to identify patterns that may not be clear when analyzing one data form.
Study Lead and CCGC director Feixiong Cheng, PhD, is a leading expert in the field of system biology and has developed several AI frames to identify potential new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
“Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, immediately after dementia, but we have no way to stop or delay his progression with the millions of people who live with this condition worldwide; the best we can achieve is currently achieving, is is, is Managing symptoms as they appear, “says the first author Lijun Dou, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Cheng’s Genomic Medicine Lab. “There is an urgent need to develop new disease -modifying therapies for Parkinson’s disease.”
Making compounds that stop or reverse the progression of Parkinson’s disease is primarily a challenge because the field still identifies which of our genes cause Parkinson’s symptoms when mutated, Dr. Dou off.
“Many of the well-known genetic mutations associated with Parkinson’s disease are in non-coding areas of our DNA, and not in real genes. We know that variants in non-coding regions in turn can influence the function of different genes, but We do not know which genes are influenced in Parkinson’s disease, “she says.
With the help of their integrative AI model, the team was able to refer genetic variants associated with Parkinson’s disease with multiple brain-specific DNA and gene expression databases. This allowed the team to distract which, if present, specific genes in our brains were influenced by variants in non -coding areas of our DNA. The team then combined the findings with protein and interactome datasets to determine which of the genes they identified, influencing other proteins in our brains when mutated. They found different potential risks (such as SNCA And LRRK2), many of which are known to cause inflammation in our brains when they are disrupted.
The research team then asked whether drugs on the market could be used again to focus on the identified genes. Even after successful medicines have been discovered and made, it can require an average of 15 years of rigorous safety tests for approved medication.
People currently live with Parkinson’s disease cannot afford to wait so long for new options as their disorders continue to progress. If we can use medicines that have already been approved by the FDA and reuse them for Parkinson’s disease, we can considerably reduce the amount of time until we can give patients more options. ”
Feixiong Cheng, PhD, director, Cleveland Clinic Genome Center
By integrating their genetic findings with available pharmaceutical databases, the team found several candidate medication. They then referred to electronic health files to see if there were differences in Parkinson’s diagnoses for patients who take the identified medicines. For example, people who had prescribed the cholesterol -lowering drug Simvastatin had less chance of receiving the Parkinson’s diagnoses in their lives.
Dr. Cheng says that the next step is to test the potential of Simvastatin to treat the disease in the lab, along with various immunosuppressive and anti-anxiety drugs that were further investigated.
“The use of traditional methods, completing one of the steps we have taken to identify genes, proteins and medicines would be very resources and time-intensive tasks,” says Dr. Dou. “With our integrative network -based analyzes, we were able to considerably speed up this process and identify multiple candidates that increase our chance of finding new solutions.”
This research was supported by subsidies from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (Ninds), both under the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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Journal Reference:
Dou, L., et al .. (2025) A network -based system genetic framework identifies pathobiology and re -spending the drug in Parkinson’s disease. NPJ Parkinsons Disease. doi.org/10.1038/s41531-025-00870-y.