Molecular Pharmacology, Department of Biofunctional Evaluation, Gifu Pharmaceutical University, 1-25-4 Daigaku-nishi, Gifu, 501-1196, Japan.
Department of Clinical Research, National Hospital Organization, Nagara Medical Center, Gifu, Japan.
Neurochem Res. 2019 Jul;44(7):1773-1779. doi: 10.1007/s11064-019-02814-4. Epub 2019 May 17.
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an inherited disease characterized by progressive motor neuron death and subsequent muscle weakness and is caused by deletion or mutation of survival motor neuron (SMN) 1 gene. Protecting spinal motor neuron is an effective clinical strategy for SMA. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential effect of an anti-epileptic drug levetiracetam on SMA. In the present study, we used differentiated spinal motor neurons (MNs) from SMA patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (SMA-iPSCs) to investigate the effect of levetiracetam. Levetiracetam promoted neurite elongation in SMA-iPSCs-MNs. TUNEL-positive spinal motor neurons were significantly reduced by levetiracetam in SMA-iPSCs-MNs. In addition, the expression level of cleaved-caspase 3 was decreased by levetiracetam in SMA-iPSCs-MNs. Furthermore, levetiracetam improved impaired mitochondrial function in SMA-iPSCs-MNs. On the other hand, levetiracetam did not affect the expression level of SMN protein in SMA-iPSCs-MNs. These findings indicate that levetiracetam has a neuroprotective effect for SMA.
脊髓性肌萎缩症(SMA)是一种遗传性疾病,其特征是运动神经元进行性死亡,随后出现肌肉无力,由生存运动神经元(SMN)1 基因缺失或突变引起。保护脊髓运动神经元是 SMA 的一种有效临床策略。本研究旨在探讨抗癫痫药物左乙拉西坦对 SMA 的潜在作用。在本研究中,我们使用源自 SMA 患者诱导多能干细胞(SMA-iPSCs)的分化脊髓运动神经元(MNs)来研究左乙拉西坦的作用。左乙拉西坦促进 SMA-iPSCs-MNs 的轴突伸长。左乙拉西坦可减少 SMA-iPSCs-MNs 中的 TUNEL 阳性脊髓运动神经元。此外,左乙拉西坦可降低 SMA-iPSCs-MNs 中 cleaved-caspase 3 的表达水平。此外,左乙拉西坦可改善 SMA-iPSCs-MNs 中受损的线粒体功能。另一方面,左乙拉西坦不影响 SMA-iPSCs-MNs 中 SMN 蛋白的表达水平。这些发现表明左乙拉西坦对 SMA 具有神经保护作用。