A mechanistic approach of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors and its subtypes on clinical and preclinical model of neurodegenerative disorders

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are ligand-activated transcription factors, belonging to the nuclear receptor family, which has high expression of three structurally homologous PPARs isotypes (PPARa, PPARp/5, and PPARy) in brain. Several studies have discovered role of PPARs in oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, neuroinflammation and production of the toxic proteins in various neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson disease, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Multiple sclerosis etc. Currently available drugs provide symptomatic relief, but disease progression cannot be stopped, because of their unclear molecular approach. The ability of PPAR to modulate the pathways involved in these conditions paved a path for future studies. Due to increasing challenges to treat central nervous system related disorders, hence PPARs have attracted much attention nowadays. In this review, we discussed various mechanisms of PPARs subtypes in neurodegenerative disorders. We congregate the molecular evidences which support PPARs as a therapeutic target to treat neurodegenerative disorders from preclinical and clinical studies and provide a basis for the potential therapeutic use of PPAR ligands in human diseases.