Czech scientists create new compound that could treat both obesity and Alzheimer’s
Experts from the Czech Academy of Science’s Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry have developed a new compound that could address two major health challenges of the present day: obesity and Alzheimer's disease. I discussed the promising new compound, which is derived from one of the peptides naturally occurring in the brain, with head of the research team, Lenka Maletínská:
“We are working with peptidic hormones, which regulate food intake, and we are studying their mechanism of action and also their role in obesity, for example.
“These neuroprotective and anti-obesity compounds we have recently written about are peptidic hormones which are released in everyone’s brain.
“We have modified these peptides, trying to design and synthesize them in a different way than they naturally occur in the organism. The aim is to make them more stable, to be able to cross the blood-brain barrier, and to act in the brain.
“We inject them into mice in order to see if they are able to improve both obesity and possibly also neurodegeneration, like Alzheimer’s disease.”
As you have already said, you have been testing the effectiveness of the substance on mice. What were the results of these tests?
“We are using preclinical models of mice with Alzheimer's-like pathology. These mice are transgenic. It means they have the human type of Alzheimer's pathology in their brain and as they age, they develop some features of Alzheimer's disease, such as neuro-inflammation.
“And when we inject our compound, which is cocaine and amphetamine-regulated transcript peptide, into the mice for one month, we can see that the pathology, which is associated with Alzheimer’s disease, is really disappearing from the brain.”
How is it even possible that two such different diagnoses, obesity and Alzheimer's disease, can be treated with the same substance?
“This is a relatively new finding. There is a hypothesis, or now it has also been proven in some patients, that there is clear link between obesity, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease. It seems that people who are obese or have type-2 diabetes are much more susceptible to Alzheimer's disease with growing age.
“Our research indicates that the insulin resistance in the periphery, which is one of the features of type-2 diabetes, could occur also in the brain. And insulin has a very important role in the brain, protecting memory and improving neurodegeneration. Therefore, it is possible to think that we can treat Alzheimer's-like pathology with the same compound like anti-obesity or anti-diabetic compounds.
If I'm not mistaken, some of the existing anti-obesity drugs are already being tested on people with Alzheimer's disease. Is that right?
“Yes, that’s right. Recently, there have been several trials with patients with so-called mild cognitive impairment, which is the first stage of neurodegeneration or Alzheimer's disease. These patients were treated in clinical trials with a new anti-obesity and anti-diabetic drug called Semaglutide. There is an ongoing study in order to find out if this compound could help patients with Alzheimer's disease.”
Going back to your research, what stage is it at? What do you currently focus on?
“Well, we are clearly in a preclinical stage and we focus on basic research and finding of mechanisms of action and so on. So it is not in a stage where we could speak about some clinical studies. That’s a question of the future. What we are trying to do is to really show what these compounds are doing in mice with Alzheimer's.”
