MAPKs: New Targets for Neurodegeneration

Neurodegenerative diseases remain a huge unmet pharmaceutical need. For some diseases such as Parkinson's disease, there are currently only palliative therapies, and for others such as Alzheimer's disease there are no proven therapies on the market that have any significant impact on disease progression. Recent work has suggested that cell death may play a key role in a number of neurodegenerative diseases, and halting this aberrant cell death may halt disease progression. Kinases identified in cell death pathways may be attractive targets for neurodegenerative diseases. In this review, the authors will focus on three families of related mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), namely, the extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases (ERKs), the c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNKs) and the p38 MAPKs. The evidence for activation of each of these pathways in disease states and in models of neurodegenerative disorders will be examined. Effects of inhibitors, where available, will be discussed, and potential problems and side effects of kinase inhibitors as therapeutics will be addressed.