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The idea that these drugs might exhibit anti-TSE activity stems from an earlier study by another group of researchers, who had found serendipitously that the anthracycline drug iododoxorubicin tended to dissolve amyloid fibrils in cancer patients treated with it. Authors therefore tested iododoxorubicin in an experimental model of prion disease and got positive results--clinical signs of disease were delayed, and survival time was prolonged. Anthracyclines, however, are fairly toxic. So author and coworkers decided to investigate whether compounds structurally related to but less toxic than anthracyclines might also have antiprion activity. "We tried tetracyclines and got similar [antiprion] results." The therapeutic potential of most anti-TSE agents identified earlier "is limited, primarily because of inability to cross the blood-brain barrier and/or severe toxicity.
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