Reduced ferroxidase activity in the cerebrospinal fluid from patients withParkinson's disease

Recent evidence suggest the implication of transition metals leading to ove rproduction of free radicals as a possible causal factor in the death of ni gral cells associated to Parkinson's disease (PD). Iron depots in the basal ganglia of PD patients have been described; in addition, contents of nigra l copper have been found decreased,while its concentration in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is raised, particularly the free form of the metal. To search for a possible link between altered copper concentrations and PD, we advanc ed the hypothesis that ferroxidase activity of ceruloplasmin is decreased i n the CSF of PD patients. We studied 35 untreated PD patients, 14 L-3,4-dih ydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA)-treated PD patients and 26 controls. Both CSF ferroxidase activity and CSF copper content were measured and correlated wi th the clinical stage of the disease. We found that untreated PD patients h ad a significant reduction of 40% in CSF ferroxidase while CSF copper was s lightly increased as compared with both the values in L-DOPA-treated PD pat ients and controls. We also found that the fraction of copper linked to fer roxidase in untreated PD is inversely related to the clinical stage of the disease. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights res erved.