Vacuum cleaner for neurons

Neuroscientists from Georgetown University Medical Center have developed and tested the drug CM101, which reduces the accumulation of toxic proteins in animals with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, and also improves cognitive and motor functions.

The drug works by turning on a neural "waste disposal system", which is designed to remove toxic proteins such as tau protein and beta-amyloid associated with Alzheimer's disease, and alpha-synuclein, characteristic of Parkinson's disease.

This work is a continuation of the research of the same group of scientists on how tyrosine kinase inhibitors can cause a similar reaction and potentially stop the development of neurodegenerative diseases. The work resulted in clinical trials of two repurposed cancer drugs, tyrosine kinase inhibitors – nilotinib and bosutinib. For the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, a dose of 10 times less is needed than for the treatment of cancer.

Scientists have found that nilotinib and bozutinib inhibit a number of enzymes of the protein kinase subclass. Deeper tests show that DDR receptors (discoidin domain receptor tyrosine kinase) may be the main key to triggering the mechanism of removing debris from brain cells affected by neurodegeneration.

A new compound, CM101, specializes in inhibiting DDR 1 and 2.

The drug has passed several tests on mice with neurodegenerative diseases and has great potential for clinical trials in humans, as it has a higher efficiency of cleaning brain cells from neurotoxic proteins compared to analogues, and DDR receptors have been identified as the main target of the drug. Next, scientists want to conduct a study of the toxicity of this drug in order to obtain permission to conduct tests on humans.

Elena Panasyuk, portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of Georgetown University Medical Center: Novel Agent Flips on 'Garbage Disposal' in Neurons, Eliminating Toxic Brain Proteins in Mice.