Feedback motif for the pathogenesis of Parkinson´s disease

Previous article on the integrative modelling of Parkinson´s disease (PD) described a mathematical model with properties suggesting that PD pathogenesis is associated with a feedback-induced biochemical bistability. In this article, the authors show that the dynamics of the mathematical model can be extracted and distilled into an equivalent two-state feedback motif whose stability properties are controlled by multi-factorial combinations of risk factors and genetic mutations associated with PD. Based on this finding, the authors propose a principle for PD pathogenesis in the form of the switch-like transition of a bistable feedback process from ´healthy´ homeostatic levels of reactive oxygen species and the protein ´-synuclein, to an alternative ´disease´ state in which concentrations of both molecules are stable at the damagingly high-levels associated with PD. The bistability is analysed using the rate curves and steady-state response characteristics of the feedback motif. In particular, the authors show how a bifurcation in the feedback motif marks the pathogenic moment at which the ´healthy´ state is lost and the ´disease´ state is initiated. Further analysis shows how known risks (such as: age, toxins and genetic predisposition) modify the stability characteristics of the feedback motif in a way that is compatible with known features of PD, and which explain properties such as: multi-factorial causality, variability in susceptibility and severity, multi-timescale progression and the special cases of familial Parkinson´s and Parkinsonian symptoms induced purely by toxic stress.