Will a drug against parkinsonism help with multiple sclerosis?
A candidate substance for the role of a drug for multiple sclerosis has been discovered
After sorting through one hundred thousand molecules, a group of American scientists discovered that the drug benzatropine, approved by the FDA for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, can be effective against multiple sclerosis. An article about this was published in one of the most authoritative journals – Nature (Deshmukh et al., A regenerative approach to the treatment of multiple sclerosis).
Multiple sclerosis is a relatively common autoimmune disease. It affects about two million people worldwide. Contrary to the name, it has nothing to do with age-related memory impairment. The onset of the disease usually occurs at a young or middle age. It is characterized by a variety of symptoms from the nervous system: paralysis, limb weakness, problems with vision, hearing or speech, memory problems, depending on the localization of lesions.
The disease occurs due to the fact that T-cells of the immune system suddenly arrange a false alarm - they penetrate into the spinal cord and brain, organize inflammation there (which would be useful for fighting pathogens, but there are no pathogens!), which eventually leads to the loss of the protective myelin sheath by neurons. Having lost the shell, they begin to conduct the signal worse and eventually die. Instead, connective tissue appears, forming characteristic plaques, because of which the disease got its name. The myelin sheath for neurons of the central nervous system is created by oligodendrocyte cells. In sick people, their number decreases, and stem cells that could restore their population divide well, but, for some unknown reason, cease to differentiate into oligodendrocytes.
Transport of myelin to oligodendrocytes
The Journal of Cell Biology
It turns out that doctors have two directions for finding a cure. The first is to suppress the T–cell immune response. This path was mainly used until recently. Another way, which is proposed by the authors in an article in the journal Nature, is still to convince stem cells to differentiate.
After going through about 100 thousand substances on a simplified in vitro model, the scientist found several that improve the efficiency of differentiation. They were particularly pleased that benztropine, already registered as a medicine, was on this list. This means that the zero and first stage of clinical trials for it can no longer be carried out, that the drug is recognized as safe. In addition, the necessary dosages, contraindications, and possible side effects are more or less known. This can significantly simplify the introduction of such a drug in a new quality.
Further experiments have shown that benzatropine is effective both for preventing a similar disease in mice and for treating after the onset of symptoms. At the same time, the efficiency of differentiation of oligodendrocyte precursors into oligodendrocytes really increases. Even better results were obtained in experiments where benzapyrene was combined with immunosuppression. Separately, it should be noted that the doses of benzapyrene were lower than those used before. This is useful because the drug has a number of side effects, the risk of which can be significantly reduced in this way.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
15.10.2013