Antioxidant Drug Tackles Symptoms of MS in Mice

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have recently discovered an antioxidant drug that may be effective in treating symptoms of a multiple sclerosis-like disease in mice.

The antioxidant, known as MitoQ, has shown to be promising in the fight against the neurodegenerative disease, and for the first time, may be able to reverse symptoms of this disorder.

Researchers induced mice to contract a disease known as experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, or EAE, that is very similar to MS in humans. They then separated the mice into four groups: : a group with EAE only; a group that was given the EAE, then treated with the MitoQ; a third group that was given the MitoQ first, then given the EAE; and a fourth "control" group of mice without EAE and without any other treatment.

Following 14 days after the study began, the EAE mice who were treated with the MitoQ exhibited a reduction via inflammatory markers and increased neuronal activity in the spinal cord that showed an improvement in their EAE symptoms. They also experienced a reduced loss of nerve fibers was also-a commen marker of MS.

"The MitoQ also significantly reduced inflammation of the neurons and reduced demyelination," said lead study author P. Hemachandra Reddy, Ph.D., an associate scientist in the Division of Neuroscience at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center, via a press release. "These results are really exciting. This could be a new front in the fight against MS."

As it's estimated that 2.3 million people worldwide are affected by MS, researchers unfortunately note that though the treatment shows promise in humans, testing is still years away. The next steps, Reddy notes, is to better understand the mechanisms of MitoQ neuroprotection in different regions of the brain and how Mitq works to prortect the mitochondria of the EAE mice brain cells.

More information regarding the study can be found via the December edition ofBiochimica et Biophysica Acta Molecular Basis of Disease.