Against hypertension and neurodegeneration
Scientists from the Dementia Research Institute of Great Britain and the Institute of Medical Research at the University of Cambridge have proved that the antihypertensive drug felodipine is able to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.
An increasing number of people, as the world population ages, are diagnosed with neurodegenerative diseases, which makes the search for effective drugs very relevant. A common feature of these diseases is the accumulation of improperly folded proteins. Proteins such as huntingtin in Huntington's disease or tau protein in some forms of dementia form constructs that can cause irreversible damage to nerve cells in the brain. In the body of healthy people, there is a mechanism to prevent the accumulation of such toxic materials, which is called autophagy. However, in neurodegenerative diseases, this mechanism is disrupted and is unable to remove proteins that accumulate in the brain.
Unfortunately, there are currently no drugs that can effectively provoke autophagy in patients, but recent epidemiological studies hint at a possible link between a drug for high blood pressure and a reduced risk of Parkinson's disease, and now researchers have shown that it can provoke autophagy in several neurodegenerative conditions in mice and fish.
A group of scientists led by Professor David Rubinstein genetically modified mice and danio-rerio fish to simulate mutations that cause Huntington's or Parkinson's disease and some forms of dementia.
Felodipine has been effective in reducing the accumulation of protein constructs in both mice and fish.
The next stage of research will be to test the drugs on patients to conclude whether they will have the same effect as on mice.
Article by Siddiqi et al. Felodipine induces autophagy in mouse brains with pharmacokinetics amenable to repurposing published in the journal Nature Communications
Elena Panasyuk, portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru /