Stella Tsirka
Stony Brook University School of Medicine, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Neurol Disord
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) characterized by inflammation and neurodegenerative processes. Currently, MS therapy involves the long-term use of immunomodulators, which tend to have numerous side effects and varying efficacies among MS patients. Additionally, these immunomodulators do not aid in promoting remyelination, which is essential to the return of neuronal function. Benztropine, a FDA-approved drug used for treatment of Parkinson�s disease was recently identified as an effective inducer of oligodendrocyte precursor cell (OPC) differentiation in vitro and in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), the most common animal model used to study MS. Thus, we sought to study the synergy of benztropine and tuftsin, immunomodulatory tetrapeptide shown to polarize microglia to the M2 phenotype in a MOG-induced acute EAE model. We examined effects on disease course, demyelination and microglial infiltration and polarization. Here we show that combinatorial treatment with both benztropine and tuftsin seems to markedly ameliorate the EAE disease course. Further, this treatment strategy reduces the pathological hallmarks of MS as well as these animals have reduced demyelination and decreased microglial activation with overall anti-inflammatory immune phenotype. This work has the potential to improve treatment strategies for patients with MS because cooperativity of these drugs will work to not only limit damage but also reverse it.
Neurological Disorders received 1343 citations as per Google Scholar report
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