Which research proteins and antibodies are used to study Parkinson’s disease?

5

Min Read

In this blog:

Trends in RUO antibody use in Parkinson's research
How are research proteins being used to study Parkinson’s disease?
How were MilliporeSigma named as Supplier Succeeding in Parkinson’s Research?

By Skye Longworth

August 20, 2024

At CiteAb, we collect citation data from the scientific literature to understand how researchers are using reagents in their work. Today, we look at trends in Parkinson’s research antibody and protein use.

This April, during Parkinson’s Disease Awareness Month, we handed over a CiteAb Award to the supplier going above and beyond to support Parkinson’s research.

Inspired by running this award for the first time, we wanted to take a closer look at both the popular and increasingly used antibodies and proteins that are supporting researchers working in this important space.

But first, here’s a bit of background on the award:

Supplier Succeeding in Parkinson’s Research Award

To recognise the incredible effort that goes into providing reagents that support researchers working on this disease, we introduced the ‘Supplier Succeeding in Parkinson’s Research’ Award this year.

To determine our winner, we looked at our citation database to find the life science company with the most citations across all reagent types related to Parkinson’s research.

After carrying out this analysis, the team at MilliporeSigma were named as the winners.

Their Parkinson’s reagents range from anti-NeuN antibodies, anti dopamine transporter antibodies, anti- aggregated a-synuclein antibodies, to protein products such as GDNF and a number of serums for cell culture, plus more.

You can read more about the Parkinson’s Award and winners here.

Below, we take a deeper look at our reagent data to find out more about which proteins and antibodies scientists are using in their study of the disease.

Protein products used to study Parkinson’s disease

Drilling down into our data from 2023, we found that nearly 20 different companies supplied proteins referenced in research related to Parkinsons’ disease.

A selection of the top products cited in the literature in 2023 included products that are broadly used across many research areas, like proteinase K and serums, as well as reagents with more of a Parkinson’s focus such as GDNF and NT-3.

Parkinson’s research growth factors

Looking back at research trends over the past three years, we found that GDNF was cited consistently. This is unsurprising, given its function in dopaminergic neuron survival, and ongoing interest in its potential role in therapies for Parkinson’s disease [1]. The top cited GDNF protein was a recombinant human version from R&D Systems.

Similarly, another neurotrophic factor BDNF was well cited. It was the most cited protein in Parkinson’s research in 2021 and 2022 from the data we’ve collected from the literature, supplied by PeproTech.

CNTF also featured in the list. All three of these growth factors have seen growing interest in clinical trials and therefore remain a relevant target for research.

Parkinson’s research enzymes

Turning our attention away from growth factors and towards enzymes, we noticed the Recombinant human His6-USP30 protein feature in the past year, supplied by R&D Systems. The USP30 protein has more recently been implicated in Parkinson’s disease through knockout/inhibition studies [2].

A different type of product that also caught our eye were preformed fibrils produced by Stressmarq.

We saw these products featuring in Parkinson’s research publications list multiple times throughout the years, with examples in 2023 including: the active human recombinant alpha synuclein preformed fibril (type 1) and the alpha synuclein pre-formed fibril (type 1). These products were developed to address the need for models that induce disease pathology.

If you’d like to learn more about protein products and how researchers are using them in their work beyond Parkinson’s disease, just get in touch with the team here who will be more than happy to chat through our protein reagent datasets!

Research antibody products used to study Parkinson’s disease

As we may have expected, when we turned our eye to the top 100 most cited antibodies used to study Parkinson’s disease, we found that they covered many well researched targets.

These included targets which are seen broadly across many research areas, as well as more specific products to Parkinson’s, including: alpha-synuclein, beta-actin, LRRK2, tyrosine hydroxylase, and Parkin, amongst others.

Interestingly, when we looked across a few years, we found that the top 10 antibodies remained broadly similar.

Parkinson’s research antibodies against alpha-synuclein

Overall, we saw that just over ten different antibodies were cited in 2023 against alpha-synuclein, showing this to be a popular target to study. Some conformation specific antibodies feature, such as the Anti-Alpha-synuclein aggregate antibody [MJFR-14-6-4-2] – Conformation-Specific from abcam, as well as an antibody against phosphorylated forms of the protein.

Parkinson’s research recombinant antibodies

We noted that a number of recombinant and rabbit monoclonal antibodies appeared in publications, reagents which offer benefits to researchers such as improved specificity and reliability. Some examples of these antibodies were from Cell Signaling Technology and Abcam, who our data has shown to be the two leading research antibody suppliers.

Overall, our data revealed that over 15 different companies supplied cited antibodies used in the research of Parkinson’s Disease.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation’s Program to Fill Gaps in Research Tools for Parkinson’s Disease

When discussing protein and antibody reagents for Parkinson’s disease research, we would be remiss to mention the important role The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) plays in providing laboratory reagents to the research community. To learn a bit more about Parkinson’s reagent development, we spoke with staff at MJFF who told us about their tools programme.

Since 2010, MJFF has developed a unique program to identify and address field-wide needs for laboratory reagents for Parkinson’s disease research. Within this program, MJFF works with collaborative teams consisting of field-leaders in reagent manufacturing and Parkinson’s disease research experts in academia to design, develop, validate, and distribute critical reagents. To date, the Foundation has made over 200 research tools available and distributed over 100,000 total units.

Some such tools and partners are mentioned above, from development of the MJFR-14-6-4-2 antibody to collaborations with Abcam and Cell Signaling Technology [3,4].

A complete list of the available tools and other laboratory tool-related resources can be found here: https://www.michaeljfox.org/research-tools. You can also submit your requests to MJFF for novel reagents to develop by emailing tools@michaeljfox.org.

Let us know about any interesting developments you’ve seen!

Are there any interesting research products you’ve used in your Parkinson’s research? We’d love to hear more!

Why not try out our search engine to find your next Parkinsons’ research reagent? Just type in your target and filter by application, reactivity, and much more to narrow down your search:

Or, if you’re looking for more insight into research antibody and protein reagents, get in touch with the team here.

Skye and the CiteAb team
Contributed to by Nicole K Polinski, Director of Research Resources at The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

References:

About the author

Skye is the Scientific Communications Manager at CiteAb, with a background in Biochemistry.