Pericytes in Parkinson’s disease

The research aims to determine the role of pericytes in Parkinson’s disease pathology. First, we want to discover how LRRK2 mutation affects the function of pericytes. Later we will assess how changes observed in the pericytes will reflect on the function of the blood-brain barrier. We will also determine the effect of Parkinson’s disease like environment induced by exposure to alpha synuclein pre-formed fibrils, protein aggregating on Parkinson’s disease, and pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1b, the level of which is increased in cerebrospinal fluid of PD patients.

Publications

Peltonen, S., Sonninen, T.-M., Niskanen, J., Koistinaho, J., Ruponen, M., Lehtonen, Š. (2024). Mutated LRRK2 induces a reactive phenotype and alters migration in human iPSC-derived pericyte-like cells. Fluids Barriers CNS 21(1):92. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12987-024-00592-y

Sonninen, T.-M., Peltonen, S., Niskanen, J., Hämäläinen R.-H., Koistinaho, J., Lehtonen, Š. (2024) LRRK2 G2019S Mutated iPSC-Derived Endothelial Cells Exhibit Increased α-Synuclein, Mitochondrial Impairment, and Altered Inflammatory Responses. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 25(23):12874. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms252312874

Monikh, F. A., Lehtonen, Š., Kekäläinen, J., Karkossa, I., Auriola, S., Schubert, K., Zanut, A., Peltonen, S., Niskanen, J., Bandekar, M., von Bergen, M., Leskinen, J., Bogialli, S., Guo, Z., Chen, C., Lynch, I. (2024) Biotransformation of nanoplastics in human plasma and their permeation through a model in vitro Blood-Brain Barrier: An in-depth quantitative analysis. Nano Today 59, 102466. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nantod.2024.102466

Albert, K., Kälvälä, S., Hakosalo, V., Syvänen, V., Krupa, P., Niskanen, J., Peltonen, S., Sonninen, T.-M. & Lehtonen, Š. (2022). Cellular Models of Alpha-Synuclein Aggregation: What Have We Learned and Implications for Future Study. Biomedicines 10, 2649 https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10102649

Wu, Y.-C., Sonninen, T.-M., Peltonen, S., Koistinaho, J., and Lehtonen, Š. (2021). Blood–Brain Barrier and Neurodegenerative Diseases—Modeling with iPSC-Derived Brain Cells. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 22, 7710.  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22147710