Australian researchers have identified a compound in a type of sea sponge that is being tested using a new technique that may help in the fight against Parkinson's disease.
Over 200 sea sponges were tested and a compound that caused changes in cells extracted from Parkinson's disease patients was identified, scientists at Queensland's Griffith University were quoted as saying by a ABC news report.
Using a new method, the researchers are testing over 200,000 natural compounds.
"The results are promising, but there are more than 200,000 samples left to test," researcher Ronald Quinn said.
"We've developed a technique using spectroscopy to look for something that's novel, so that part of it gives us a compound that has not been found previously by anyone else, so it's unique," he said.
"Then we've looked at that compound on cells that we've obtained from patients who have Parkinson's disease.
"When we looked at those 220 using this MMR fingerprinting, that allowed us to see which of those 220 had an unique component and that really allowed us to hone, and isolate and identify this compound that's new," Quinn said.
The technique could be used to treat a variety of conditions, but is a way off yet.
"In this study if we get one [compound] out of 200 - and we have 200,000 - that's quite a lot of potential that we can find that may help in trying to understand Parkinson's disease in this particular program," Quinn said, adding it is a tool to try to understand the biology behind the Parkinson's disease.
"Hopefully with this sort of technique, we can use tools similar to this to reverse the phenotype and bring the Parkinson's disease patient back to normal. This is very early - this is a molecule that allows us to understand the system," he said.
"Any therapeutic use or drug use is well down the track. We're trying to find within that haystack if you like - the needle - the single compound that's quite unique and different and can be useful to be developed towards understanding the disease, and then later on to try to treat the disease," he said.
He said that marine sponges have very little protection in nature and their way of surviving predators is the chemicals it uses to achieve that.
"Because it's producing chemicals for protection and other functions, then those compounds may be useful in a therapeutic sense on a human target," he said.
