Can an antibiotic treat Huntington Disease?
Huntington disease is a progressive neurological disorder involving the degeneration of nerve cells in the largest portion of the brain known as the cerebrum. It is a genetically inherited illness, symptoms of which do not appear until adulthood and include loss of cognitive and mental function, personality changes, and abnormal, jerky facial and body movements. It affects around 5 out of 1,000,000 people and there is no cure. Minocycline is a commonly prescribed antibiotic which effectively crosses the blood brain barrier to reach the brain. Studies have shown that this drug inhibits the activity of an enzyme called caspase-1 and increases amounts of another enzyme called inducible nitric oxide synthetase. They found that the antibiotic delays disease progression and mortality in mice modeling Huntington disease, minocycline could be a potentially new treatment for humans with the condition. Scientists advance HIV treatment prospects A team of scientists from Switzerland is calling fo
