An international team of scientists led by the University of Leicester (UK) has discovered a way to reverse the symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s using fruit flies as test subjects. The study has spanned five years and has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Thanks to this work, researchers have shown that genetic and pharmacological approaches can be used to lower the levels of toxic metabolites in the nervous system and thus alleviate some of the symptoms of neurodegeneration.
“ The two most common neurodegenerative disorders in the world are Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Treatment options for these diseases are limited, and to date there are no cures. Our hope is that by improving our understanding of how these nerve cells get sick and die in the brain, we can help devise ways to interfere with these processes, thereby either delaying the onset of disease or preventing disease altogether. ”, Clarifies Flaviano Giorgini, leader of the study.
The experiment was carried out with the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster in order to explore which specific metabolites cause nerve cell loss in fly models with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease.
Scientists found that inhibition of the TDO and FMO enzymes improved the symptoms of all flies due to increased levels of the kinurenine pathway metabolite known as kinurenic acid (KYNA) which is able to counteract the effects of toxic metabolites .
“We are very excited about these results, as they suggest that inhibition of TDO and KMO could be a general strategy used to improve symptoms in a wide variety of neurodegenerative disorders, not just Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, so our next step is to validate our work in mammalian models and ultimately to see if these drugs could be useful for patients in clinical trials ”, concludes Giorgini.
