scholarly journals Repurposing Licensed Drugs for Use Against Alzheimer’s Disease

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Leslie C. Norins
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Epidemiological Data ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Effective Manner ◽  
In Vivo Testing ◽  
Approved Drugs

Substantial evidence, composed of drug mechanisms of action, in vivo testing, and epidemiological data, exists to support clinical testing of FDA-approved drugs for repurposing to the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Licensed compound investigation can often proceed at a faster and more cost-effective manner than un-approved compounds moving through the drug pipeline. As the prevalence of AD increases with life expectancy, the current rise in life expectancy amalgamated with the lack of an effective drug for the treatment of AD unnecessarily burdens our medical system and is an urgent public health concern. The unfounded reluctance to examine repurposing existing drugs for possible AD therapy further impedes the possibility of improving the quality of patient lives with a terminal disease. This review summarizes some evidence which exists to suggest certain already-approved drugs may be considered for the treatment of AD and will perhaps encourage physicians to off-label prescribe these safe therapeutics.

scholarly journals In vivo testing of the role of Alzheimer’s disease coding variants

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (S3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Sasner ◽  
Adrian L. Oblak ◽  
Dylan Garceau ◽  
Kevin P. Kotredes ◽  
Christoph Preuss ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
In Vivo Testing ◽  
Coding Variants

scholarly journals Article Commentary: Alzheimer's Disease, Diagnosis and the Need for Biomarkers

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. BMI.S682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudie Hooper ◽  
Simon Lovestone ◽  
Ricardo Sainz-Fuertes
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Neurodegenerative Disorder ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Predictive Biomarker ◽  
Disease Diagnosis ◽  
Response To Therapy ◽  
Histopathological Analysis

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder of aging that presents with memory loss, disorientation, confusion and a reduction in cognitive ability. Although a definite diagnosis of the disorder can only be made post-mortem by histopathological analysis, a number of methods are currently available for the in vivo assessment of AD including psycho-metric tests and neuro-imaging. However, these clinical assessments are relatively nonspecific and imaging is very costly. Genetic testing can be performed if familial AD is suspected, although such cases represent a very small minority of total AD cases. Apolipoprotein E genotype provides a measure for analysing the risk of developing AD, but does not act as an absolute predictive biomarker for AD. Therefore there is a need for an accurate, universal, specific and cost-effective biomarker to facilitate not only ante-mortem diagnosis of AD, but also to allow progression of the disease and response to therapy to be monitored. This is the ultimate goal that our group is pursuing through the pan-European AddNeuroMed project.

scholarly journals Pharmacological targeting of MCL-1 promotes mitophagy and improves disease pathologies in an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xufeng Cen ◽  
Yanying Chen ◽  
Xiaoyan Xu ◽  
Ronghai Wu ◽  
Fusheng He ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Mouse Model ◽  
Therapeutic Intervention ◽  
Drug Candidates ◽  
Model Of Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Approved Drugs ◽  
Fda Approved Drugs ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractThere is increasing evidence that inducing neuronal mitophagy can be used as a therapeutic intervention for Alzheimer’s disease. Here, we screen a library of 2024 FDA-approved drugs or drug candidates, revealing UMI-77 as an unexpected mitophagy activator. UMI-77 is an established BH3-mimetic for MCL-1 and was developed to induce apoptosis in cancer cells. We found that at sub-lethal doses, UMI-77 potently induces mitophagy, independent of apoptosis. Our mechanistic studies discovered that MCL-1 is a mitophagy receptor and directly binds to LC3A. Finally, we found that UMI-77 can induce mitophagy in vivo and that it effectively reverses molecular and behavioral phenotypes in the APP/PS1 mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. Our findings shed light on the mechanisms of mitophagy, reveal that MCL-1 is a mitophagy receptor that can be targeted to induce mitophagy, and identify MCL-1 as a drug target for therapeutic intervention in Alzheimer’s disease.

Dementia Around the World and the Latin America and Mexican Scenarios

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Brito-Aguilar
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Fine Particulate Matter ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Epidemiological Data ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
The World

Dementia has become a major public health concern around the world. Dementia risk factors are significantly different among countries. The number of new cases of dementia anticipated each year worldwide is almost 7.7 million, one new case every four seconds. There are 3.6 million (46%) new cases per year in Asia, 2.3 million (31%) in Europe, 1.2 million (16%) in the Americas, and 0.5 million (7%) in Africa. Latin American and Caribbean low and middle-income countries are at high risk. Air pollution is an important risk modifiable factor for dementia across the world, and the recent report of the Alzheimer’s disease continuum in children and young adults residing in Metropolitan Mexico City along with the presence of cognitive impairment in 55% of the young adult population residing in Mexican cities with fine particulate matter concentrations above the current USEPA annual standard of 12 μg/m3 makes this a severe public health problem in progress. It is imperative to keep generating epidemiological data on dementia worldwide and their relationship with air pollutants to improve the strategies to face all the challenges associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in particular. Alzheimer’s disease is a fatal disease, we have no cure, and we ought to invest in protecting our citizens by intervening in modifiable environmental factors.

Retinal Amyloid Imaging for Screening Alzheimer’s Disease

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Koh Tadokoro ◽  
Toru Yamashita ◽  
Shuhei Kimura ◽  
Emi Nomura ◽  
Yasuyuki Ohta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
In Vivo Imaging ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Amyloid Deposition ◽  
Amyloid Imaging ◽  
Noninvasive Methods ◽  
In Vivo Detection

Background: Cost-effective and noninvasive methods for in vivo imaging of amyloid deposition are needed to screen Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Although retinal amyloid is a possible diagnostic marker of AD, there are very few studies on in vivo retinal amyloid imaging. Objective: To examine the usefulness of in vivo imaging of retinal amyloid in AD patients. Methods: To examine amyloid deposition, 30 Japanese subjects (10 normal control (NC), 7 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 13 with AD) underwent a complete ophthalmic examination, including fundus imaging by scanning laser ophthalmoscopy before and after oral curcumin intake. Results: Retinal amyloid deposition was greater in AD than in NC subjects ( * p <  0.05) while MCI showed a slight but insignificant increase of retinal amyloid deposition relative to NC subjects. Retinal amyloid deposition was correlated with whole gray matter atrophy (r = 0.51,  * p <  0.05) but not with the cognitive score of the Mini-Mental State Examination, nor with medial temporal lobe atrophy. Conclusion: The present noninvasive in vivo detection of retinal amyloid deposition is useful for screening AD patients.

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