Molecular switch for repairing central nervous system disorders

Neurons illustration (stock image).

A molecular switch has the ability to turn on a substance in animals that repairs neurological damage in disorders such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Mayo Clinic researchers discovered. The early research in animal models could advance an already approved Food and Drug Administration therapy and also could lead to new strategies for treating diseases of the central nervous system.

Research by Isobel Scarisbrick, Ph.D., published in the Journal of Neuroscience finds that by genetically switching off a receptor activated by blood proteins, named Protease Activated Receptor 1 (PAR1), the body switches on regeneration of myelin, a fatty substance that coats and protects nerves.

"Myelin regeneration holds tremendous potential to improve function. We showed when we block the PAR1 receptor, neurological healing is much better and happens more quickly. In many cases, the nervous system does have a good capacity for innate repair," says Dr. Scarisbrick, principal investigator and senior author. "This sets the stage for development of new clinically relevant myelin regeneration strategies."

Myelin, Thrombin and the Nervous System

Myelin acts like a wire insulator that protects electrical signals sent through the nervous system. Demyelination, or injury to the myelin, slows electrical signals between brain cells, resulting in loss of sensory and motor function. Sometimes the damage is permanent. Demyelination is found in disorders such as MS, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, schizophrenia and spinal cord injury.

Thrombin is a protein in blood that aids in healing. However, too much thrombin triggers the PAR1 receptor found on the surface of cells, and this blocks myelin production. Oligodendrocyte progenitor cells capable of myelin regeneration are often found at sites of myelin injury, including demyelinating injuries in multiple sclerosis.

"These oligodendroglia fail to differentiate into mature myelin regenerating cells for reasons that remain poorly understood," says Dr. Scarisbrick. "Our research identifies PAR1 as a molecular switch of myelin regeneration. In this study, we demonstrate that blocking the function of the PAR1, also referred to as the thrombin receptor, promotes myelin regeneration in two unique experimental models of demyelinating disease."

The Research

The research focused on two mouse models. One was an acute model of myelin injury and the other studied chronic demyelination, each modeling unique features of myelin loss present in MS, Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders. Researchers genetically blocked PAR1 to block the action of excess thrombin.

The research not only discovered a new molecular switch that turns on myelin regeneration, but also discovered a new interaction between the PAR1 receptor and a very powerful growth system called brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF). BDNF is like a fertilizer for brain cells that keeps them healthy, functioning and growing.

Significantly, the researchers found that a current Food and Drug Administration-approved drug that inhibits the PAR1 receptor also showed ability to improve myelin production in cells tested in the laboratory.

"It is important to say that we have not and are not advocating that patients take this inhibitor at this time," says Dr. Scarisbrick. "We have not used the drug in animals yet, and it is not ready to put in patients for the purpose of myelin repair. Using cell culture systems, we are showing that this has the potential to improve myelin regeneration."

Additional research is needed to verify and advance the findings toward clinical practice.

The study was made possible by a grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society with support from the Mayo Clinic Rehabilitation Medicine Research Center, the Center for Multiple Sclerosis and Autoimmune Neurology and the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine.

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Mayo Clinic. Original written by Susan Buckles. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Molecular switch for repairing central nervous system disorders

Neurons illustration (stock image).

A molecular switch has the ability to turn on a substance in animals that repairs neurological damage in disorders such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Mayo Clinic researchers discovered. The early research in animal models could advance an already approved Food and Drug Administration therapy and also could lead to new strategies for treating diseases of the central nervous system.

Research by Isobel Scarisbrick, Ph.D., published in the Journal of Neuroscience finds that by genetically switching off a receptor activated by blood proteins, named Protease Activated Receptor 1 (PAR1), the body switches on regeneration of myelin, a fatty substance that coats and protects nerves.

"Myelin regeneration holds tremendous potential to improve function. We showed when we block the PAR1 receptor, neurological healing is much better and happens more quickly. In many cases, the nervous system does have a good capacity for innate repair," says Dr. Scarisbrick, principal investigator and senior author. "This sets the stage for development of new clinically relevant myelin regeneration strategies."

Myelin, Thrombin and the Nervous System

Myelin acts like a wire insulator that protects electrical signals sent through the nervous system. Demyelination, or injury to the myelin, slows electrical signals between brain cells, resulting in loss of sensory and motor function. Sometimes the damage is permanent. Demyelination is found in disorders such as MS, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, schizophrenia and spinal cord injury.

Thrombin is a protein in blood that aids in healing. However, too much thrombin triggers the PAR1 receptor found on the surface of cells, and this blocks myelin production. Oligodendrocyte progenitor cells capable of myelin regeneration are often found at sites of myelin injury, including demyelinating injuries in multiple sclerosis.

"These oligodendroglia fail to differentiate into mature myelin regenerating cells for reasons that remain poorly understood," says Dr. Scarisbrick. "Our research identifies PAR1 as a molecular switch of myelin regeneration. In this study, we demonstrate that blocking the function of the PAR1, also referred to as the thrombin receptor, promotes myelin regeneration in two unique experimental models of demyelinating disease."

The Research

The research focused on two mouse models. One was an acute model of myelin injury and the other studied chronic demyelination, each modeling unique features of myelin loss present in MS, Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders. Researchers genetically blocked PAR1 to block the action of excess thrombin.

The research not only discovered a new molecular switch that turns on myelin regeneration, but also discovered a new interaction between the PAR1 receptor and a very powerful growth system called brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF). BDNF is like a fertilizer for brain cells that keeps them healthy, functioning and growing.

Significantly, the researchers found that a current Food and Drug Administration-approved drug that inhibits the PAR1 receptor also showed ability to improve myelin production in cells tested in the laboratory.

"It is important to say that we have not and are not advocating that patients take this inhibitor at this time," says Dr. Scarisbrick. "We have not used the drug in animals yet, and it is not ready to put in patients for the purpose of myelin repair. Using cell culture systems, we are showing that this has the potential to improve myelin regeneration."

Additional research is needed to verify and advance the findings toward clinical practice.

The study was made possible by a grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society with support from the Mayo Clinic Rehabilitation Medicine Research Center, the Center for Multiple Sclerosis and Autoimmune Neurology and the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine.

---

Story Source:

Materials provided by Mayo Clinic. Original written by Susan Buckles. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Deadly 'superbugs' destroyed by molecular drills

Klebsiella bacteria illustration (stock image).

Molecular drills have gained the ability to target and destroy deadly bacteria that have evolved resistance to nearly all antibiotics. In some cases, the drills make the antibiotics effective once again.

Researchers at Rice University, Texas A&M University, Biola University and Durham (U.K.) University showed that motorized molecules developed in the Rice lab of chemist James Tour are effective at killing antibiotic-resistant microbes within minutes.

"These superbugs could kill 10 million people a year by 2050, way overtaking cancer," Tour said. "These are nightmare bacteria; they don't respond to anything."

The motors target the bacteria and, once activated with light, burrow through their exteriors.

While bacteria can evolve to resist antibiotics by locking the antibiotics out, the bacteria have no defense against molecular drills. Antibiotics able to get through openings made by the drills are once again lethal to the bacteria.

The researchers reported their results in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano.

Tour and Robert Pal, a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Durham and co-author of the new paper, introduced the molecular drills for boring through cells in 2017. The drills are paddlelike molecules that can be prompted to spin at 3 million rotations per second when activated with light.

Tests by the Texas A&M lab of lead scientist Jeffrey Cirillo and former Rice researcher Richard Gunasekera, now at at Biola, effectively killed Klebsiella pneumoniae within minutes. Microscopic images of targeted bacteria showed where motors had drilled through cell walls.

"Bacteria don't just have a lipid bilayer," Tour said. "They have two bilayers and proteins with sugars that interlink them, so things don't normally get through these very robust cell walls. That's why these bacteria are so hard to kill. But they have no way to defend against a machine like these molecular drills, since this is a mechanical action and not a chemical effect."

The motors also increased the susceptibility of K. pneumonia to meropenem, an antibacterial drug to which the bacteria had developed resistance. "Sometimes, when the bacteria figures out a drug, it doesn't let it in," Tour said. "Other times, bacteria defeat the drug by letting it in and deactivating it."

He said meropenem is an example of the former. "Now we can get it through the cell wall," Tour said. "This can breathe new life into ineffective antibiotics by using them in combination with the molecular drills."

Gunasekera said bacterial colonies targeted with a small concentration of nanomachines alone killed up to 17% of cells, but that increased to 65% with the addition of meropenem. After further balancing motors and the antibiotic, the researchers were able to kill 94% of the pneumonia-causing pathogen.

Tour said the nanomachines may see their most immediate impact in treating skin, wound, catheter or implant infections caused by bacteria -- like staphylococcus aureus MRSA, klebsiella or pseudomonas -- and intestinal infections. "On the skin, in the lungs or in the GI tract, wherever we can introduce a light source, we can attack these bacteria," he said. "Or one could have the blood flow through a light-containing external box and then back into the body to kill blood-borne bacteria."

"We are very much interested in treating wound and implant infections initially," Cirillo said. "But we have ways to deliver these wavelengths of light to lung infections that cause numerous mortalities from pneumonia, cystic fibrosis and tuberculosis, so we will also be developing respiratory infection treatments."

Gunasekera noted bladder-borne bacteria that cause urinary tract infections may also be targeted.

The paper is one of two published by the Tour lab this week that advance the ability of microscopic nanomachines to treat disease. In the other, which appears in ACS Applied Materials Interfaces, researchers at Rice and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center targeted and attacked lab samples of pancreatic cancer cells with machines that respond to visible rather than the previously used ultraviolet light. "This is another big advance, since visible light will not cause as much damage to the surrounding cells," Tour said.

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Rice University. Original written by Mike Williams. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Deadly 'superbugs' destroyed by molecular drills

Klebsiella bacteria illustration (stock image).

Credit: © Kateryna_Kon / Adobe Stock

Molecular drills have gained the ability to target and destroy deadly bacteria that have evolved resistance to nearly all antibiotics. In some cases, the drills make the antibiotics effective once again.

Researchers at Rice University, Texas A&M University, Biola University and Durham (U.K.) University showed that motorized molecules developed in the Rice lab of chemist James Tour are effective at killing antibiotic-resistant microbes within minutes.

"These superbugs could kill 10 million people a year by 2050, way overtaking cancer," Tour said. "These are nightmare bacteria; they don't respond to anything."

The motors target the bacteria and, once activated with light, burrow through their exteriors.

While bacteria can evolve to resist antibiotics by locking the antibiotics out, the bacteria have no defense against molecular drills. Antibiotics able to get through openings made by the drills are once again lethal to the bacteria.

The researchers reported their results in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano.

Tour and Robert Pal, a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Durham and co-author of the new paper, introduced the molecular drills for boring through cells in 2017. The drills are paddlelike molecules that can be prompted to spin at 3 million rotations per second when activated with light.

Tests by the Texas A&M lab of lead scientist Jeffrey Cirillo and former Rice researcher Richard Gunasekera, now at at Biola, effectively killed Klebsiella pneumoniae within minutes. Microscopic images of targeted bacteria showed where motors had drilled through cell walls.

"Bacteria don't just have a lipid bilayer," Tour said. "They have two bilayers and proteins with sugars that interlink them, so things don't normally get through these very robust cell walls. That's why these bacteria are so hard to kill. But they have no way to defend against a machine like these molecular drills, since this is a mechanical action and not a chemical effect."

The motors also increased the susceptibility of K. pneumonia to meropenem, an antibacterial drug to which the bacteria had developed resistance. "Sometimes, when the bacteria figures out a drug, it doesn't let it in," Tour said. "Other times, bacteria defeat the drug by letting it in and deactivating it."

He said meropenem is an example of the former. "Now we can get it through the cell wall," Tour said. "This can breathe new life into ineffective antibiotics by using them in combination with the molecular drills."

Gunasekera said bacterial colonies targeted with a small concentration of nanomachines alone killed up to 17% of cells, but that increased to 65% with the addition of meropenem. After further balancing motors and the antibiotic, the researchers were able to kill 94% of the pneumonia-causing pathogen.

Tour said the nanomachines may see their most immediate impact in treating skin, wound, catheter or implant infections caused by bacteria -- like staphylococcus aureus MRSA, klebsiella or pseudomonas -- and intestinal infections. "On the skin, in the lungs or in the GI tract, wherever we can introduce a light source, we can attack these bacteria," he said. "Or one could have the blood flow through a light-containing external box and then back into the body to kill blood-borne bacteria."

"We are very much interested in treating wound and implant infections initially," Cirillo said. "But we have ways to deliver these wavelengths of light to lung infections that cause numerous mortalities from pneumonia, cystic fibrosis and tuberculosis, so we will also be developing respiratory infection treatments."

Gunasekera noted bladder-borne bacteria that cause urinary tract infections may also be targeted.

The paper is one of two published by the Tour lab this week that advance the ability of microscopic nanomachines to treat disease. In the other, which appears in ACS Applied Materials Interfaces, researchers at Rice and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center targeted and attacked lab samples of pancreatic cancer cells with machines that respond to visible rather than the previously used ultraviolet light. "This is another big advance, since visible light will not cause as much damage to the surrounding cells," Tour said.

---

Story Source:

Materials provided by Rice University. Original written by Mike Williams. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.