Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor leads to bidirectional transcript regulation of Nurr1: A new key to Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurological movement diseases with few therapeutic targets identified to date. The primary treatment for PD is levodopa, but it is only effective in the initial stage and induces side effects of the disease. To address this problem, we unveil the hitherto uncharacterized crucial role of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase protein (BTK) as a bidirectional transcriptional bio-regulator of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) expression via the modulation of nuclear receptor-related transcription factor 1 (Nurr1). The proteomics competition binding assay revealed that BTK binds to Nurr1 and transactivates TH promoter activity via Nurr1. The BTK inhibitor demonstrated remarkable effects in the mitochondrial permeability transition pore-induced oxidative stress model by significantly attenuating the levels of proinflammatory mediators via WNT/β-catenin and MAPK kinase signaling. These findings highlight the potential efficacy of BTK inhibitors as innovative therapeutics for PD.