A compound already used to treat pneumonia could become a new
therapy for an inherited muscular wasting disease, according to
researchers at the University of Oregon and the University of
Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York.
The five-member team reports that pentamidine, when tested in
genetically altered mice, counters genetic splicing defects in RNA
that lead to type 1 myotonic dystrophy -- one of nine types of
muscular dystrophy -- also known as DM1 and Steinart's disease.
The compound was among 26 tested in the UO lab of chemist J.
Andrew Berglund. Pentamidine carries approval of the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration for treating a severe type of pneumonia in
people with weakened immune systems, as well as leishmaniasis,
sleeping sickness and some yeast infections. However, levels used
successfully in the experiments would be toxic in humans, Berglund
said.
With modifications, he added, pentamidine could be adapted to
reverse RNA splicing defects that drive type 1 myotonic dystrophy.
"The fact that a very small library of compounds yielded a molecule
capable of reversing the splicing defects associated with DM1 in
both cell and mouse DM1 models suggests that a small molecule
strategy could lead to a drug for this disease," he said.
The experiments -- done by former UO doctoral student M. Bryan
Warf and Catherine M. Matthys, who has since graduated from the UO,
and Rochester's postdoctoral researcher Masayuki Nakamori --
identified pentamidine and neomycin B as compounds that worked
against abnormal genetic instructions. Pentamidine, however, was
found to be the most effective in the mice. Berglund, a member of
the UO Institute of Molecular Biology, and Dr. Charles A. Thornton,
a neurologist at Rochester, were co-authors of the study.
The research -- supported primarily by grants from the National
Institutes of Health and the Muscular Dystrophy Association -- was
published in the Nov. 3 issue of the journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences. In a separate commentary in PNAS,
Thomas A. Cooper of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston
hailed the findings, noting that the compound is the first to show
such promise of reversing splicing defects. Cooper also noted that
such a therapeutic approach is attractive because of the potential
benefits to multiple organs affected by the disease.
DM1 is caused by an expanded section of DNA in a gene on
chromosome 19. The expanded DNA results in synthesis of
longer-than-normal strands of RNA sequences, or repeats, of the
chemicals cytosine, uracil and guanine. These abnormal pieces get
trapped in the nuclei of muscle fibers, and protein molecules
called MBNL in each nucleus become stuck to the CUG repeats. This
leads to errors in the splicing process in which important proteins
are made incorrectly or not at all. In turn, disruptions in muscle
fibers cascades into changes in ion channels that impacts the
ability of muscles to relax after use.
Researchers found that pentamidine disrupted the complexes
formed by the expanded repeats and the MBNL protein that becomes
stuck to them, allowing the protein to return to its proper
location in the cell. The compound also inhibited interactions of
MBNL with the cytosine-uracil-guanine repeats and partially rescued
two splicing errors in the mice.
Pentamidine has not been yet tested in people with DM1, Berglund
cautioned, but its FDA approval for other uses is important.
"Although pentamidine is not ready for use as a therapy for DM1,
this work does demonstrate that a small molecule strategy is a
viable approach to this disease," Berglund said. "Almost all human
diseases are currently treated with small molecules. Pentamidine is
an exciting lead compound because it is relatively easy to
chemically modify, and hopefully one of these modified compounds
could lead to a safe, long-term treatment for DM1 in the
future."
SOURCE