OBJECTIVE: Less is understood about the role of CYP2E1 in the central nervous system, therefore the purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between the expression and activity of CYP2E1 enzyme relevant to Parkinson's disease and to identify whether an increase in the expression of CYP2E1 is associated with neurodegeneration.
METHODS: The objectives of the study were achieved by implicating an unsystematic integrative literature review approach in which the literature was qualitatively analysed, critically evaluated and a new theory with an overall view of the mechanism was presented.
RESULTS: The contribution of CYP2E1 in the development of Parkinson's disease was found to be significant as the negative effects of CYP2E1 overshadowed its protective detoxifying role.
CONCLUSION: Overexpression of CYP2E1 seems detrimental to dopaminergic neurons, therefore, to overcome this, a synthetic biochemical is required, which paves the way for further research and development of valuable biomolecules.
METHODOLOGY: A total of 80 adult zebrafish were divided into 4 groups namely control, paraquat-treated, pre-hMT2-treated, and post-hMT2-treated groups. Fish were treated with paraquat intraperitoneally every 3 days for 15 days. hMT2 were injected intracranially on day 0 (pre-treated group) and day 16 (post-treated group). Fish were sacrificed on day 22 and the brains were collected for qPCR, ELISA and immunohistochemistry analysis.
RESULTS: qPCR analysis showed that paraquat treatment down-regulated the expression of genes related to dopamine activity and biosynthesis (dat and th1) and neuroprotective agent (bdnf). Paraquat treatment also up-regulated the expression of the mt2, smtb and proinflammatory genes (il-1α, il-1β, tnf-α and cox-2). hMT2 treatment was able to reverse the effects of paraquat. Lipid peroxidation decreased in the paraquat and pre-hMT2-treated groups. However, lipid peroxidation increased in the post-hMT2-treated group. Paraquat treatment also led to a reduction of dopaminergic neurons while their numbers showed an increase following hMT2 treatment.
CONCLUSION: Paraquat has been identified as one of the pesticides that can cause the death of dopaminergic neurons and affect dopamine biosynthesis. Treatment with exogenous hMT2 could reverse the effects of paraquat in the zebrafish brain.