Editing Parkinson’s disease—discovery of an inflammatory RNA editing enzyme

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder in which the α-synuclein protein abnormally aggregates within brain cells, causing neuronal damage. Through international collaboration, researchers at KAIST have revealed that RNA editing plays a crucial role in regulating neuroinflammation, a key pathology of Parkinson’s disease.

The paper is published in the journal Science Advances.

The research team, led by Professor Minee L. Choi from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, in collaboration with University College London (UCL) and the Francis Crick Institute, discovered that the RNA-editing enzyme ADAR1 plays an important role in controlling immune responses in astrocytes, glial cells that trigger protective reactions in the brain, and demonstrated that this mechanism is critically involved in the progression of Parkinson’s disease.

Professor Choi’s research team created a co-culture model composed of astrocytes and neurons derived from stem cells originating from Parkinson’s disease patients, in order to study the inflammatory responses of brain immune cells. They then treated the model with α-synuclein aggregates, which are known to cause Parkinson’s disease, and analyzed how the immune cells‘ inflammatory responses changed.

They found that early pathological forms of α-synuclein, known as oligomers, activated the Toll-like receptor pathway, which acts as a danger sensor in astrocytes, as well as the interferon response pathway, an immune signaling network that combats viruses and pathogens. During this process, the RNA editing enzyme ADAR1 was expressed and transformed into an isoform with an altered protein structure and function.

Notably, the RNA editing activity of ADAR1, which normally functions to regulate immune responses during viral infections by converting adenosine (A) to inosine (I) through a process known as A-to-I RNA editing, was found to be abnormally focused on genes that cause inflammation rather than operating under normal conditions. This phenomenon was observed not only in the patient-derived neuron models but also in postmortem brain tissues from actual Parkinson’s disease patients.

This directly proves that the dysregulation of RNA editing induces chronic inflammatory responses in astrocytes, ultimately leading to neuronal toxicity and pathological progression.

This study is significant in that it newly identified the regulation of RNA editing within astrocytes as a key mechanism behind neuroinflammatory responses. In particular, it suggests that ADAR1 could serve as a novel genetic target for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

It is also noteworthy that the study reflected actual pathological characteristics of patients by utilizing patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cell-based precision models for brain diseases.

Professor Minee L. Choi stated, “This study demonstrates that the regulator of inflammation caused by protein aggregation operates at the new layer of RNA editing, offering a completely different therapeutic strategy from existing approaches to Parkinson’s disease treatment.”

She further emphasized, “RNA editing technology could become an important turning point in the development of therapeutics for neuroinflammation.”