Madrid
Updated:03/06/2022 12:45h
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A study conducted by researchers at the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) and published in the journal “Neurology” shows that the mechanisms associated with a certain drug for diabetes can also help protect against Alzheimer’s disease. The results indicate that this drug target protein could be an interesting candidate for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is becoming More frequently, but there are no drugs that stop the course of the disease. On the other hand, the development of new drugs It is a slow, expensive and complex process.
For this reason, an alternative strategy consists of finding already approved drugs that may be effective against the disease and giving them a new scope of application.
Drugs for diabetes have been proposed as possible candidates, but until now the studies that have tested their effectiveness in their use against Alzheimer’s disease have not given convincing results.
In this, researchers from the Karolinska Institute used genetic methods to study it more closely.
“Genetic variants encoding the target proteins of this drug can cause physiological changes similar to the effects of the drug,” says study first author Bowen Tang of the Karolinska Institute.
“We use these variants to check the reuse potential of already approved drugs.”
The researchers began by identifying the genetic variants that mimic the pharmacological effect of diabetes medications, i.e. lowering blood glucose. To do this, data from more than 300,000 participants in the UK Biobank registry were analysed.
The analysis identified variants in two genes that together encode the target protein for a class of diabetes drugs called sulfonylureas. The researchers validated these variants by showing their association, among other phenomena, with increased insulin release, lower risk of type 2 diabetes, and higher BMI, which is consistent with drug effects.
They then examined the relationship between the identified genetic variants and the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. To do this, they analyzed data previously collected from more than 24,000 people with Alzheimer’s disease and 55,000 as controls. They found that genetic variants in the sulfonylurea genes were linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
“Our results suggest that the target protein of sulfonylureas, the canal KATP, may be a therapeutic target for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease,” says study author Sara Hägg. “This protein is expressed in the pancreas, but also in the brain, and more studies are needed to fully understand the underlying biology».
The analysis method applied in the study is called Mendelian randomization, which uses knowledge of genetic variants in individuals as a kind of natural randomization, not unlike a randomized clinical trial. Thus, individuals who are born with certain protective variants that mimic the effect of a certain drug can be studied to see their association with a disease.
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