这4种常见药物可以逆转小鼠的阿尔茨海默症

作者：Good News Network

出处：Good News Network

译者：Tom Wang

一项研究通过服用目前用于治疗人类高血压和炎症的药物，成功逆转了小鼠的阿尔茨海默症。

在这项研究中，由 Aloy 博士领导的巴塞罗那 IRB 科学家描述了阿尔茨海默病的三个阶段，即初期、中期和晚期。

对于每个阶段，他们都分析了动物的行为，研究了阿尔茨海默症对大脑（尤其是海马体）的影响，并进行了分子分析以测量基因表达和蛋白质水平。

所采用的方法使他们能够以前所未有的详细程度描述疾病的发展，并将其与健康老龄化进行比较。

“我们观察到，虽然阿尔茨海默症有一些加速衰老的特征，但它也受到完全不同的衰老过程的影响，”阿洛伊博士说。 “这种疾病是由某些蛋白质的异常积累引起的，我们已经看到，在某些情况下，这不是由生产过剩引起的，而是由它们的去除错误引起的，”他补充道。

化学检查器：检测最有用的分子

在描述了这种疾病的特征后，科学家们使用了化学检查器，这是一种由同一研究小组开发的计算工具，用于寻找市场上已有的药物，这些药物能够在细胞水平上逆转这种影响。

该工具使他们能够确定一系列可能的候选者，并在各种阿尔茨海默病小鼠模型中进行了测试。

四种药物——两种非甾体消炎药右酮洛芬和依托度酸，以及两种高血压药喷丁洛尔和苯氟噻嗪，被证明可有效逆转这些小鼠的疾病和中和症状。他们在 Genome Medicine 上发表了这项研究。

“流行病学研究已经表明，经常服用消炎药的人患阿尔茨海默病的几率较低，但这与特定的药物或机制无关。

“我们发布的结果最有希望，我们希望可以对它们进行进一步的研究，因为它们可能导致治疗这种疾病的转变，”Aloy 博士说。

疾病的早​​期诊断

除了为阿尔茨海默病的治疗开辟新的研究途径外，此研究中发表的这种疾病不同阶段的特征有利于早期诊断。

在早期诊断阿尔茨海默病，因为此时对大脑的损害仍然很小，是解决这种情况和减轻症状的主要研究重点之一。

原文：

A study has managed to reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in mice by administering drugs currently used to treat hypertension and inflammation in humans.

In this study, scientists at IRB Barcelona led by Dr. Aloy have characterized three stages of Alzheimer’s disease, namely initial, intermediate, and advanced.

For each of these stages, they have analyzed the behavior of the animals, studied the effects on the brain (specifically the hippocampus at the tissue level), and performed a molecular analysis to measure gene expression and protein levels.

The approach adopted has allowed them to describe the development of the disease at a level of detail hitherto unknown and also compare it with healthy aging.

“What we have observed is that, although Alzheimer’s disease shares some features of accelerated ageing, it is also affected by totally different ageing processes,” says Dr. Aloy. “This disease is caused by the abnormal accumulation of certain proteins, and we have seen that, in some cases, this is not caused by overproduction but by an error in their removal,” he adds.

Chemical Checker: detection of the most promising molecules

Having characterized the disease, the scientists used the Chemical Checker, a computational tool developed by the same research group to find drugs already on the market with the capacity to reverse the effects at the cellular level.

This tool has allowed them to identify a series of possible candidates, which were tested in various mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease.

Four drugs—two non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, dexketoprofen and etodolac, along with two anti-hypertensives, penbutolol and bendroflumethiazide, proved effective at reversing the disease and neutralizing symptoms in these mice. They published the study in Genome Medicine.

“Epidemiological studies already indicated that people who regularly take antiinflammatories show a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, but this had not been correlated with a specific medication or mechanism.

“The results that we are publishing are most promising, and we hope that further research can be done on them because they could give rise to a paradigm shift in the treatment of this disease,” says Dr. Aloy.

Early diagnosis of the disease

In addition to paving new avenues of research for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, the characterization of the distinct stages of this condition published in this study favors early diagnosis.

Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease at an early stage, when damage to the brain is still minimal, is one of the main research focuses to tackle this condition and to reduce symptoms.