Spyridon Theofilopoulos

TL;DR: Lxr ligands may improve current hESC replacement strategies for PD by selectively augmenting the generation of DA neurons in mouse embryonic stem cells and in wild-type but not Lxralphabeta(-/-) VM progenitor cultures.

TL;DR: Fan et al. as mentioned in this paper analyzed the free sterol content of cerebrospinal fluid by a combination of charge tagging and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, and the most abundant cholesterol metabolites were found to be C27 and C24 intermediates of the bile acid biosynthetic pathways with structures corresponding to 7α-hydroxy-3-oxocholest-4-en-26-oic acid (7.170 ± 2.826 ng/ml, mean ± S.D.

TL;DR: Cholic acid was identified as a new Lxr ligand and 24(S),25-epoxycholesterol (24,25-EC) was found to be the most potent and abundant LxR ligand in the developing mouse midbrain, suggesting that L xr ligands may contribute to the development of cell replacement and regenerative therapies for Parkinson's disease.

TL;DR: The results indicate that specific cholestenoic acids selectively work on motor neurons, via LXR, to regulate the balance between survival and death.

TL;DR: The controlled trans-differentiation potential of neural progenitor cells could pave the way for development and harvesting of large numbers of neurons of the appropriate neurotransmitter phenotype for future transplantation therapies for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.