Linked Life Data

21158739

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/21158739

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
1
pubmed:dateCreated
2010-12-16
pubmed:abstractText
One of the major current challenges to both medicine and neuroscience is the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, which pose an ever-increasing medical, social and economic burden in the developed world. These disorders, which include Alzheimer's, Huntington's and Parkinson's diseases, and the rarer prion diseases, are separate entities clinically but have common features, including aggregates of misfolded proteins and varying patterns of neurodegeneration. A key barrier to effective treatment is that patients present clinically with advanced, irreversible, neuronal loss. Critically, mechanisms of neurotoxicity are poorly understood. Prevention of neuronal loss, ideally by targeting underlying pathogenic mechanisms, must be the aim of therapy. The present review describes the rationale and experimental approaches that have allowed such prevention, rescuing neurons in mice with prion disease. This rescue cured animals of a rapidly fatal neurodegenerative condition, resulting in symptom-free survival for their natural lifespan. Early pathological changes were reversed; behavioural, cognitive and neurophysiological deficits were recovered; and there was no neuronal loss. This was achieved by targeting the central pathogenic process in prion disease rather than the presumed toxic species, first by proof-of-principle experiments in transgenic mice and then by treatment using RNA interference for gene knockdown. The results have been a new therapeutic target for prion disease, further insight into mechanisms of prion neurotoxicity and the discovery of a window of reversibility in neuronal damage. Furthermore, the work gives rise to new concepts for treatment strategies for other neurodegenerative disorders, and highlights the need for clinical detection of early neuronal dysfunction, so that similar early rescue can also be achieved for these disorders.
pubmed:grant
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Jan
pubmed:issn
1470-8728
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:day
1
pubmed:volume
433
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
19-29
pubmed:dateRevised
2011-9-6
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2011
pubmed:articleTitle
Rescuing neurons in prion disease.
pubmed:affiliation
MRC Toxicology Unit, Hodgkin Building, University of Leicester, Lancaster Road, Leicester LE1 9EH, UK.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Review, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't