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Microorganisms
Special Issues
Virus and Neurodegenerative Diseases
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Virus and Neurodegenerative Diseases

A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Virology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2022) | Viewed by 3115

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Bo Niklasson

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Jordbro Primary Health Care Center, 137 64 Stockholm, Sweden
Interests: Ljungan virus; bank vole; hantavirus; epidemiology; picornavirus

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, frontal lobe dementia, Parkinson's disease and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, are each characterized by progressive degeneration and loss of specific subsets of neurons that lead to declines in brain function such as cognition and locomotor control. Although these diseases have different clinical manifestations, depending partly on which region of the brain is affected, they share some common features and pathological hallmarks including protein aggregation and the formation of inclusion bodies or aggregate deposits in selected brain regions. Infectious agents causing neurodegenerative disease was suggested a century ago but definitive evidence linking any particular infectious agent with neurodegenerative disease is still missing. In this Special Issue, we are focusing on an update on evidence of infectious ethology in neurodegenerative diseases.

Prof. Dr. Bo Niklasson
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • neurodegenerative diseases
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • frontal lobe dementia
  • Parkinson's disease
  • amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
  • infection virus

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 2205 KiB  
Communication
Picornavirus May Be Linked to Parkinson’s Disease through Viral Antigen in Dopamine-Containing Neurons of Substantia Nigra
by Bo Niklasson, Lars Lindquist, William Klitz, Sten Fredrikson, Roland Morgell, Reza Mohammadi, Netherlands Brain Bank, Yervand Karapetyan and Elisabet Englund
Microorganisms 2022, 10(3), 599; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/microorganisms10030599 - 10 Mar 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2631
Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease linked with the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain region called substantia nigra and caused by unknown pathogenic mechanisms. Two currently recognized prominent features of PD are an inflammatory response manifested by glial reaction and [...] Read more.
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease linked with the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain region called substantia nigra and caused by unknown pathogenic mechanisms. Two currently recognized prominent features of PD are an inflammatory response manifested by glial reaction and T-cell infiltration, as well as the presence of various toxic mediators derived from activated glial cells. PD or parkinsonism has been described after infection with several different viruses and it has therefore been hypothesized that a viral infection might play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease. We investigated formalin-fixed post-mortem brain tissue from 9 patients with Parkinson’s disease and 11 controls for the presence of Ljungan virus (LV) antigen using a polyclonal antibody against the capsid protein of this recently identified picornavirus with neurotropic properties, suspected of being both a human and an animal pathogen. Evidence of viral antigen was found in 7 out of 9 Parkinson’s disease cases and in only 1 out of 11 controls (p = 0.005). The picornavirus antigen was present in dopamine-containing neurons of the substantia nigra. We propose that LV or an LV-related virus initiates the pathological process underlying sporadic PD. LV-related picornavirus antigen has also been reported in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Potentially successful antiviral treatment in Alzheimer’s disease suggests a similar treatment for Parkinson's disease. Amantadine, originally developed as an antiviral drug against influenza infection, has also been used for symptomatic treatment of patients with PD for more than 50 years and is still commonly used by neurologists today. The fact that amantadine also has an antiviral effect on picornaviruses opens the question of this drug being re-evaluated as potential PD therapy in combination with other antiviral compounds directed against picornaviruses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Virus and Neurodegenerative Diseases)
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