MADRID, 26 (EUROPA PRESS)
Researchers of the Autonomous University of Madrid have shown that resveratrol, a natural polyphenol with high-powered antioxidant found in various foods and plants, protects against the neurotoxic effects of sclerosis lateral amiotrófica (ELA), a serious degenerative disease that originates in motor neurons.
The study, published in ' Brain Research ', has been developed by scientists of Institute Teófilo Hernando of the drug r & d, attached to the University. His research have also observed that the drug currently used in the therapy of this disease, the Riluzole, not only does not display Neuroprotective effects but may antagonize the beneficial effects of resveratrol.
It has been postulated the existence of a toxic factor in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients of ELA as responsible for neuronal damage. However, studies are not yet clear in this regard, that the conclusions drawn are different depending on the number of samples tested, the neuronal lineage and the studied species.
The researchers conducted various experiments to study the effect of CSF on cultivation of rat motor cortex neurons. As part of his study, incubated for 24 hours these neural crops with CSF from ALS patients and compared them with the effect caused by the CSF of healthy controls. In this way, noted that about 75 per cent of the CSF from ALS patients were significantly toxic to motor neurons of rat.
“the following question would be looking for what could be the factor or factors responsible for neurotoxic actions of the CSF.” An obvious candidate was glutamate, which has been implicated in the process neurodegenerative occurring in patients with ALS as well as models of mouse of this pathology. “However, discard this amino acid was responsible for neuronal death, for its receptor blockers were unable to antagonize the toxic effect of the LCR”, exposes the doctor Antonio GarcÃa, director of the group which carried out the research and Professor of Pharmacology of the UAM.
According to the study, the apoptotic processes, or programmed cell death, leading to the death of motor neurons in the ELA, they include the excess of cytosolic calcium and an increase in the generation of radical free.
On the basis of these observations, the authors found that when the CSF of patients of ELA coincubaron with concentrations submicromolares of resveratrol, a natural polyphenol with high antioxidant power, the neurotoxic effects of the ELA were mitigated considerably.
Currently, the only drug available to treat the ELA is the Riluzole. Its use in advanced stages of the disease is inadvisable and administered early months prolongs the life of patients.
According to experiments conducted by the same research team, which also took as a model of study crops of motor cortex of rat neurons, the Riluzole failed to counteract the toxic effect caused by the CSF of patients of ELA. This result so adds more evidence against the idea of the involvement of glutamate in the neurotoxic effects of the CSF of patients of ELA.
but the most striking finding of the study was that, when the neurons were coincubadas with resveratrol and Riluzole, the Neuroprotective effects of resveratrol against the neurotoxicity of the CSF were lost completely, detailing Dr. Matilde Yáñez, the research group.
“Because that clinical trials with new compounds are generally performed in patients with ALS treated with Riluzole, our finding suggests that the Riluzole could have a negative effect rather than an additive or synergistic effect with the new compounds being tested”, adds the same researcher.
. In conclusion, they stand out, they have managed to demonstrate that cefalorraquÃdeos fluids of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis harm the neuronal viability through a mechanism independent of glutamate. Resveratrol protects against these neurotoxic effects while Riluzole, in addition to not be effective as a neuroprotective agent, is capable of antagonizing the beneficial effects of the resveratrol.
