Researchers at the University of Manchester, England, have created a method to detect Parkinson’s disease with a simple test that analyzes skin fat with mass spectrometry.
The study, published in the Journal, of the American Chemical Society, found that there are high molecular weight lipids that are substantially more active in Parkinson’s patients. The researchers used swabs to take samples from the back of the neck and identify the compounds present on the skin.
“The method involves paper spray ionization mass spectrometry, combined with ion mobility separation. It can be done in just three minutes from taking the sample to the results”, the experts assured in a statement issued by the British institution.
Perdita Barran, who led the research, explained: “We are tremendously excited about these results that bring us closer to making a diagnostic test for that disease that could be used clinically.”
The study, according to English media reports, was born thanks to the help of a former Scottish nurse, Joy Milne, who discovered that thanks to a pathology she suffers from, she can “smell Parkinson’s” and distinguish individuals based on their aroma body before clinical symptoms appear.
Joy has hereditary hyperosmia, which makes her more sensitive to smells. Parkinson’s has a distinctive scent, which is strongest in the fat that accumulates on the patient’s back.
Milne, 72, noticed that her late husband, Les, developed a different odor when he was 33, about 12 years before he was diagnosed with the disease. She described a “musky” scent, unlike normal, she posted The Independent. Years later, academics at the University of Manchester have made a breakthrough by developing the test that can identify people with Parkinson’s using a sample of fat from the back of the neck.
Grease is an oily secretion from sebaceous glands under the skin that are connected to the endocrine system. Scientists found that it can be used as a diagnostic biofluid, as it is rich in hydrophobic endogenous metabolites. Altered production of this is a well-known feature of Parkinson’s.
Monty Silverdale, clinical leader of this study, said: “This test has the potential to greatly improve the diagnosis and treatment of patients.”
Describing the new technique, Depanjan Sarkar of the study’s working group noted: “The fat is transferred to the filter paper of the sampling swab, and then we cut it into a triangle, add a drop of solvent, apply a voltage and this transfers the fat compounds to the mass spectrometer. When we do this, we find more than 4,000 unique compounds, of which 500 are different between Parkinson’s patients compared to control participants.”
The team now sees this as a big step towards a clinical method for confirmatory diagnosis of the disease, as there is no biomarker-based screening test to date.
The current and future focus is to translate these findings into a test of clinical utility. This work also opens the door to the possibility of diagnosing other diseases through non-invasive fat analysis.
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