effective combination medicine for Parkinson's disease control symptoms of Rett syndrome in mice -
IDIBELL researchers, led by program director for Epigenetics and Cancer Biology , ICREA researcher and professor of genetics at the University of Barcelona, Manel Esteller, showed that a combination of drugs effective against Parkinson's disease in mice that are used as a model of human Rett syndrome reduces some of the associated symptoms to this disease. The results of the study are published in the journal Neurophsycopharmacology
Second leading cause of mental retardation in females
Rett syndrome is second most common cause of mental retardation in females after Down syndrome. It is a disease whose clinical picture begins to appear neurodevelopmental 6-18 months after birth and implies a loss of intellectual, social and motor, accompanied by autistic behaviors such as repetitive hand.
The syndrome is usually due to the presence of a mutation in the MECP2 gene, an epigenetic gene that controls the activity of many other genes, such as a padlock. Today there is no effective treatment for the disease. The group of Manel Esteller, in collaboration with the group of Neurometabolic disease IDIBELL led by Aurora Pujol, described this week in the journal Neuropsycopharmacology how the treatment of the drug in mice used as Rett syndrome models reduces some of the symptoms associated with disease.
Altered production through dopamine
"there six years, studying the brains of mice that faithfully present the same characteristics human Rett syndrome, we found there was a change in the way the production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter. here, Rett syndrome was some resemblance to Parkinson's disease, which also has defects in the same molecule.
There are effective drugs in Parkinson's disease so we decided to investigate whether they could also function in Rett syndrome, "says Manel Esteller." We found that combination therapy with a decarboxylase inhibitor and L-Dopa dopa reduces the typical manifestations of the disease and mobility defects, tremor and respiratory depression in these animals. "
"It is not a panacea or a magic pill or" warns Esteller "but is at least a starting point to examine whether it can also be helpful in controlling the symptoms of Rett syndrome in humans . "
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