Drugs for treatment of prion infections
Prion diseases are fatal and at present there are neither cures nor therapies available to delay disease onset or progression in humans. Inspired in part by therapeutic approaches in the fields of Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, researchers tested five different drugs which are known to efficiently pass through the blood-brain barrier in a mouse prion system. Groups of intracerebrally prion-challenged mice were treated with the drugs curcumin, dapsone, ibuprofen, memantine and minocycline. Treatment with antibiotics dapsone and minocycline had no therapeutic benefit. Ibuprofen-treated mice showed severe adverse effects, which prevented assessment of therapeutic efficacy. Mice treated with low- but not high-dose curcumin and mice treated with memantine survived infections significantly longer than untreated controls. These results encourage further research efforts to improve the therapeutic effect of these drugs.
Related:
- Fears over new wave of vCJD deaths
- A General Model of Prion Strains and Their Pathogenicity
- Prions, Proteasomes, and Mad Cows
Tags: Antibiotics, Biology, Health, Medicine, Microbiology, Prions, Science
I have access to the full Paper but when this was uploaded to the database, they’ve wrongly indexed it and the user is routed to a completely different Paper.
I see that the above is what is stated in the Abstract.
A quick search of said database threw up plenty Papers about memantine and curcumin at both in vivo and in vitro level. As such, research in this area is not new. The literature suggests that such compound *may* have protective benefits but are not thought to have possible therapeutic benefits after onset of disease progression of Prion/AD etc.
One has been very closely following Prion/treatment issues since 2001.
The only compounds that we know of that are worthy of investigation in patient terms are polyanions like dextran sulphate and Pentosan Polysulphate (PPS). Such molecules are too large in molecular weight to pass the BBB so have to be infused directly into the patients brain.
PPS work commenced in Jan 2003 and is ongoing. At least in vCJD terms, we have clearly demonstrated that extended survivability and patient stability is possible via icv PPS. The earlier this is delivered the better.
A number of Manuscripts are currently under construction in this regard.
The key however remains very early diagnosis.
The PubMed link seems to work correctly for me – has it been fixed now?
The PubMed link does work correctly but as it’s a TA Paper, I don’t have access.
The database that I DO have full access to is not PubMed.
Thanks for the info. Sincere thanks to McDawg too.
I’ve now read this Paper. In essence, it says:-
“Taken together, we report here results obtained on the
treatment of established prion infections of the CNS with
five different drugs, which are all known to pass efficiently
through the BBB. Only low-dose curcumin and memantine
treatment showed a small, but statistically significant,
therapeutical benefit (Fig. 1). One approach towards a
more substantial therapeutic efficacy could be to combine
for example curcumin and/or memantine therapy with
administration of 3-hydroxymethyl-3-glutaryl coenzyme A
reductase inhibitor simvastatin, which was recently shown
to prolong survival times in established prion infections of
the CNS (Kempster et al., 2007; Mok et al., 2006).
Ultimately, more research into underlying pathomechanisms
in prion diseases is needed to aid in the development
of improved therapeutic concepts.”