Immunotherapeutic Approaches for the Treatment of Neurodegenerative Diseases: Challenges and Outcomes

Background: Neurodegenerative diseases, being rapidly increasing disorders and the seventh leading cause of death worldwide, have been a great challenge for researchers, affecting cognition, motor activity and other body functioning due to neurodegeneration. Several neurodegenerative diseases are caused by aggregation of proteins which induce the alteration of neuronal function leading to cell death. These proteins are amyloid-β peptide, tau, α-synuclein, and mHTT, which cause Alzheimer’s disease, Frontotemporal dementia, Corticobasal degeneration, Progressive supranuclear palsy, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple system atrophy, Dementia with Lewy-body and Huntington’s disease. Currently available treatments only reduce symptoms and increase life sustainability; however, they possess side effects and are ineffective in curing the diseases. Objective: Literature survey of neurodegenerative diseases and immunotherapeutic approaches is used to evaluate their pharmacological effects and future endeavours. Methods: A literature search was performed to find the relevant articles related to neurodegenerative diseases and immunotherapies. Clinical trials data were analysed from clinicaltrial.com. Results: According to the literature study, it was found that researchers have explored the effect of active and passive vaccines generated against amyloid-β, tau, α-synuclein and mHTT. Few clinical trials have shown severe side effects and terminated, despite that, few of them produced desirable effects for the treatment of AD and PD. Conclusion: Several immunotherapeutic trials have shown promising outcomes against amyloid-β, tau and α-synuclein. In addition, various preclinical studies against mHTT and prion proteins are under scrutinization. These clinical outcomes indicate a promising role of immunotherapies against neurodegenerative diseases.