Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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GlaxoSmithKline

Fragile X: preclinical portfolio for PI3k drug strategy

Research in mice shows that a pharmacological strategy can alleviate multiple behavioral and cellular deficiencies in a mouse model of fragile X syndrome (FXS), the most common inherited form of intellectual disability and a major single-gene cause of autism spectrum disorders.

The results were published online last week by Neuropsychopharmacology, and were presented at the NFXF International Fragile X Conference in Cincinnati.

When the compound GSK6A was given to mice lacking the Fmr1 gene, an established animal model of fragile X syndrome, it relieved symptomatic behaviors, such as impaired social interactions and inflexible decision making, which can be displayed by humans with fragile X syndrome.

The findings indicate that treatment with GSK6A or a similar compound could be a viable strategy for addressing cognitive and behavioral problems in fragile X syndrome; this would need to be tested directly in clinical trials. GSK6A inhibits one particular form of a cellular signaling enzyme: the p110β form of PI3 (phosphoinositide-3) kinase. A closely related p110β inhibitor is already in clinical trials for cancer.

Video from the iBook “Basic Science Breakthroughs: Fragile X Syndrome”. Narration by Emory genetics chair Stephen Warren, whose team identified the gene responsible for fragile X.

“Our results suggest that p110β inhibitors can be repurposed for fragile X syndrome, and they have implications for other subtypes of autism spectrum disorders that are characterized by similar alterations of this pathway,” says Gary Bassell, PhD, professor and chair of cell biology at Emory University School of Medicine.

“Right now, no proven efficient treatments are available for fragile X syndrome that are targeted to the disease mechanism,” says Christina Gross, PhD, from Cincinnati Children’s. “We think that p110β is an appropriate target because it is directly regulated by FMRP, and it is overactivated in both mouse models and patient cell lines.”

The paper represents a collaboration between three laboratories: two at Emory led by Bassell and Shannon Gourley, PhD, and one at Cincinnati Children’s, led by Gross. Gourley is based at Yerkes National Primate Research Center; see this earlier item on her collaboration with Bassell here.

While the researchers are discussing clinical trials of p110β inhibitors in fragile X syndrome, they say that long-term studies in animals are needed to ensure that undesirable side effects do not appear. More here.

With respect to clinical trials, the fragile X community has been disappointed before. Based on encouraging studies in mouse models, drugs targeting mGluR5 glutamate receptors were tested in adolescents and adults. mGluR5 drugs did not show clear benefits; recent re-evaluation suggests the choice of outcome measures, the ages of study participants and drug tolerance may have played a role.

Warren played a major role in developing the mGluR5 approach and Emory investigators were part of those studies. More recently, clinical trials for one of the mGluR5 medications were revived in younger children and Emory is a participating site. Also, see this 2016 discussion in Spectrum with Elizabeth Berry-Kravis on the fragile X mouse model; Bassell, Gross and Gourley have made some inroads on the limitations Berry-Kravis describes.

Posted on July 19, 2018 by Quinn Eastman in Neuro Leave a comment

Why the RTS,S malaria vaccine is such a tease

Continuing from Monday’s post, IMP graduate student Taryn McLaughlin explains why the most advanced malaria vaccine is actually not that great.

Malaria has plagued humans for thousands of years. And while we have known the causative agents of the disease- for 150 years, malaria remains scientifically frustrating. In fact, one of the most common treatments for the disease is simply a derivative of a treatment used in ancient China.

One of the most frustrating features is that there is no sterilizing immunity. In other words, for many diseases once you are infected with the microbe responsible, you develop an immune response and then never get the disease again. Not so with malaria. Compounded with terrible treatment and the impracticality of ridding the world of mosquitos, a vaccine sounds like pretty much our only hope. And yet this has been scientifically challenging and unsuccessful for many many reasons.

In fact a number of vaccine candidates have come along in the last few decades that have seemed SO promising only to go on and break our hearts in clinical trials. The most recent of which is a vaccine that goes by the name RTS,S (named for the different components of the vaccine).

As a quick refresher, Plasmodium enters the body via mosquitos as a sporozoite. It then migrates through the skin going into the blood and eventually making it’s way to the liver. Here it goes inside liver cells where it replicates and turns into merozoites (such that one sporozoite becomes thousands of merozoites). This stage of the disease is asymptomatic. Some time later, all those merozoites burst out of your liver cells causing mayhem and invading your red blood cells. Here, they once again replicate and metamorphose. Fun times. Anyways, during the last stage, some of those plasmodium become gametes which get eaten by mosquitos thus completing the life cycle. Read more

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

Cell death drug discovery: come at the king, you best not miss

It may seem like a stretch to compare an enzyme to a notorious criminal, especially one as distinctive as Omar Little, a character from the HBO drama The Wire played by Michael Kenneth Williams.

But stick with me, I’ll explain.

TheWire-OmarLittle2-Portable

Omar is a stick-up man who robs street-level drug dealers. When drug dealer henchmen Stinkum and Weebay ambush him, they are unsuccessful and Stinkum is killed. Omar tells Weebay, who is hiding behind a car: “Come at the king, you best not miss.”

At Emory, Ed Mocarski, Bill Kaiser and colleagues at GlaxoSmithKline have been studying an enzyme called RIP3. RIP3 is the king of a form of programmed cell death called necroptosis. RIP3 is involved in killing cells as a result of several inflammation-, infection- or injury-related triggers, so inhibitors of RIP3 could be useful in modulating inflammation in many diseases.

In a new Molecular Cell paper, Mocarski, Kaiser and their co-authors lay out what happened when they examined the effects of several compounds that inhibit RIP3 in cell culture. These compounds stopped necroptosis, but unexpectedly, they unleashed apoptosis, another form of programmed cell death.  Read more

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

Two angles on cell death

One can take two very different angles when approaching Bill Kaiser’s and Ed Mocarski’s work on RIP kinases and the mechanisms of cell death. These are: the evolutionary where-does-apoptosis-come-from angle, and the anti-inflammatory drug discovery angle.

A pair of papers published this week, one in PNAS and one in Journal of Immunology, cover both of these angles. (Also, back to back papers in Cell this week, originating from Australia and Tennessee, touch on the same topic.)

First, the evolutionary angle.

Cellular suicide can be a “scorched earth” defense mechanism against viruses. Kaiser and Mocarski have been amassing evidence that some forms of cellular suicide arose as a result of an arms race of competition with viruses. The PNAS paper is part of this line of evidence. It shows that the cell-death circuits controlled by three different genes (RIP1, RIP3 and caspase 8) apparently can be lifted cleanly out of an animal. Mice lacking all three genes not only can be born, but have well-functioning immune systems.

Apoptosis is thought to be a form of cellular suicide important for the development of all multicellular organisms. That’s why, to cell and developmental biologists, it seemed rather shocking that researchers can mutate a group of genes that drive apoptosis and other forms of cellular suicide and have adult animals emerge.

Next, the drug discovery angle.

The J. Immunol paper makes that angle clear enough. Most of the authors on this paper are from GlaxoSmithKline’s “Pattern Recognition Receptor Discovery Performance Unit, Immuno-Inflammation Therapeutic Area.” Here, they show that a mutation in RIP1 inactivating the kinase enzyme protects mice against severe skin and multiorgan inflammation. They conclude their abstract with: “Together, these data suggest that RIP1 kinase represents an attractive therapeutic target for TNF-driven inflammatory diseases.”

Note: TNF-driven inflammatory diseases include rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases and psoriasis, representing a multibillion dollar market.

 

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment