In a new study from NIH and elsewhere, researchers found several existing and emerging cancer drugs could be repurposed as therapies to be tested in clinical trials for people at genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
They found an experimental drug for liver cancer and Dasatinib, approved for chronic myeloid leukemia, act upon some of the Alzheimer’s disease-related proteins, suggesting they could be potential Alzheimer’s therapies.
In the study, the team identified brain protein changes related to the APOE4 genetic risk variant in young postmortem study participants (average age at death was 39 years).
They compared these changes with those in the autopsied brains of people with Alzheimer’s and those without (average age at death was 89 years).
The researchers then tested whether existing Food and Drug Administration-approved or experimental drugs for other diseases act upon some of these proteins.
They found an experimental drug for liver cancer and Dasatinib, approved for chronic myeloid leukemia, act upon some of these Alzheimer’s disease-related proteins, suggesting they could be potential Alzheimer’s therapies.
The drugs also reduced neuroinflammation, amyloid secretion, and tau phosphorylation in cell culture experiments, underscoring their potential as candidates to be tested in Alzheimer’s clinical trials.
These findings add to evidence from another recent study showing the value of this kind of data-driven approach to drug repurposing research.
Next steps could include testing these drugs in clinical trials. For those already FDA-approved or that have already been tested for safety in other trials, the timeline for testing could be decreased.
If you care about Alzheimer’s disease, please read studies about a new early sign of Alzheimer’s disease and findings of common heartburn drugs may raise your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
For more information about Alzheimer’s and your health, please see recent studies about this stuff in the brain may play a big role in Alzheimer’s disease and results showing that chronic stress linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
The study is published in Science Advances. One author of the study is Jackson A. Roberts.
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