Zonisamide facilitates survival of human iPS cell-derived dopaminergic neurons in the rat striatum

It is reported that the transplantation of dopaminergic (DA) progenitors derived from pluripotent stem cells improves the behavior of Parkinson's disease (PD) model animals. However, the number of survived DA neurons was reported to be about 10% of the transplanted cells. This low survivability limits the clinical application of this stem cell-based therapy for PD. Recently, it was reported that zonisamide (ZNS) increased the number of survived DA neurons upon the transplantation of mouse induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-derived DA progenitors in the mouse striatum. It is not known, however, whether ZNS exerts the same effect on human DA neurons.

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