Development of GlcNAc as disease modifying treatment for Parkinson's Disease

In patient-derived midbrain neurons we propose to investigate whether N-acetyl-glucosamine (GlcNAc) supplementation can serve as a novel approach to enhance N-linked protein glycosylation which in turn will improve enzyme trafficking, ALP function, and reduce a-syn (Fig 1).Such an approach would be of high interest, since GlcNAc is already available as a dietary supplement and there is little concern about its potential side effects. If GlcNAc supplementation rescues PD models, we can move these studies into α-syn mouse models and ultimately in the clinics.