Drugs against Alzheimer's disease: another candidate
A drug that slows down the development of Alzheimer's disease has been discovered
Alexander Shuster, sci-lib based on ScienceDaily:
Potential Alzheimer's Disease Drug Slows Damage and Symptoms in Animal ModelA substance that has been clinically tested for its ability to suppress the development of cancer, as it turned out, slows down the development of damage to the nervous system and improves the functioning of the brain.
Such data were obtained during studies on animals (laboratory mice), in which, under experimental conditions, a state of health similar to that of a person suffering from Alzheimer's disease was noted. The research results published in the Journal of Neuroscience suggest that a substance called epothilon D (ePOD) effectively resists the development of damage to the nervous system and improves the flow of cognitive processes. The results of the study help to understand how ePOD can be used to combat Alzheimer's disease in the early stages of its development.
Employees of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania (Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania), led by Professor Bin Zhang and Kurt R. Brunden, head of the program for the search for new drugs conducted at the Center for the Study of neurodegenerative Diseases, administered ePOD to laboratory mice whose memory was impaired and in clusters resembling clusters of the protein tau improperly stacked in the tertiary structure (a sign of Alzheimer's disease) were noted in the brain. In neurons, tau normally stabilizes structures called microtubules. Clusters of improperly formed tau protein can disrupt the stability of microtubules. If their stability is disrupted, damage to neurons may occur. A drug that is able to stabilize the state of the microtubules of neurons can improve the functioning of neurons in the case of Alzheimer's disease and other similar diseases.
A photograph of a cross-section of the nerve of experimental laboratory mice. In this picture, the arrows indicate structural anomalies. In laboratory mice that received ePOD, the number of such anomalies was significantly reduced.
ePOD acts by the same mechanism as the cytostatic drug paclitaxel (Taxol™). These drugs inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells through overstabilization of specialized microtubules involved in the process of chromosome separation occurring within the framework of cell division. The authors of the scientific study managed to show that ePOD, unlike paclitaxel, easily penetrates into brain tissue. Thus, it can be used to treat Alzheimer's disease and similar diseases.
After three months of ePOD use, no new atypical tau accumulations were formed in the brains of experimental mice. There was also an increase in the function of nerve cells (compared to the group of animals that did not receive ePOD). Moreover, experimental animals treated with the drug showed improvements in memory and normalization of learning abilities. It is important to note that the concentration of ePOD, which led to the appearance of these improvements, was many times lower than that used in clinical studies of ePOD as a means of suppressing the development of cancerous tumors. When studying the effect of ePOD on the body of laboratory mice, no side effects were detected. For example, there was no suppression of the activity of the immune system.
Based on the results obtained, it can be assumed that ePOD in a low concentration can serve as a means of combating Alzheimer's disease and a number of other neurological diseases, for example, Steele-Richardson-Olshevsky syndrome.
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19.03.2012