Reuse of a Small Molecule to Increase Autophagy in the Brain is Trialed for Alzheimer ' s Disease

Today I'll point out an example of drug reuse and autophagy upregulation. The processes of autophagy are responsible for recycling molecular waste and broken cellular structures. Autophagy is upregulated in response to stress placed upon cells, whether by heat, cold, lack of nutrients, a toxic local environment, and so forth. This is beneficial to tissue function, health, and longevity, and thus there is considerable interest in the research community in producing therapies that boost the operation of autophagy. This hasn't made a great deal of progress towards the clinic, but nonetheless in any of the sizable databases of small molecule compounds there are some that result in increased autophagy - the question is always whether the side-effects are tolerable. The cancer research community in particular tests a great many compounds and attempts to influence a great many core cellular processes, autophagy included. So when we see attempts at drug reuse, it is often the case that the drug in question is a small molecule that is either present used, used in the past, or was at least considered for chemotherapy. In the trial noted here, the drug is nilotinib. Researchers propose that it produces the observed reduction of toxic protein aggregates in the Alzheimer's disease brain by spurring increased autophagy, and can do so at low enough doses to avoid the worst of the side-effects noted to date. Of course, as is sadly standard in the mainstream of Alzheimer's development,...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs