When the tetracycline was added to their water, the gene was repressed and the rodents were healthy. If the tetracycline was withdrawn, they all developed leukemia and died within a few weeks unless the antibiotic was put back in their water. The researchers say their findings give rise to hopes that cancer can be reversed quickly if diagnosed in the earliest stages, and where the trigger for activating the oncogene is known. Prion diseases involve the buildup of toxic proteins in the brain, a process blocked by these new drugs. At issue is an amino acid called glutamate, which in tiny amounts is vital to brain function but in large amounts is toxic.
Strokes cause too much glutamate to leak into the brain, thus killing brain cells.
Studies with mice at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine suggest that glutamate also is a culprit in multiple sclerosis - and that the experimental stroke drugs might help. The researchers induced a type of MS in mice. Half received a laboratory chemical that blocks glutamate from binding to brain cells. Those mice had less severe MS symptoms than untreated mice, and the chemical also appeared to protect myelin-producing cells from further damage. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center have developed a strain of mice in whom pregnancy leads to a condition that closely models intrauterine growth retardation, or IUGR, opening the way for scientists to better understand the disorder and develop interventions to effectively treat it.