Aspirin seems to protect against damage to the nerve cells of rats inflicted by glutamate, an amino acid, which has been involved in some chronic degenerative diseases. But some experts are skeptical about whether the test-tube findings, reported in today's issue of Science are relevant to humans.
Glutamate transmits messages in the brain. But at high concentrations it becomes a powerful excitotoxin that kills brain cells. Scientists have found evidence in recent years that the toxic effects of glutamate may play a role in nerve cell death seen in chronic neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease .
Knowing that neurodegeneration often accompanies inflammation, and aspirin reduces the inflammatory response, pharmacologist Mariagrazia Grilli and colleagues at the University of Brescia Medical School in Italy exposed to see if aspirin could prevent neurodegeneration. They have exposed rat brain cells to toxic levels of glutamate and either a cocktail of aspirin and its metabolite sodium salicylate, or a second anti-inflammatory drug indomethacin. Only aspirin cocktail at concentrations equivalent to those people who take aspirin protected against glutamate toxicity
The team traced Grilli protective effects of aspirin's ability to inhibiting the activation of two glutamate proteins -. nuclear factor kappa B and Rel. The proteins are transcription factors that switch on genes involved in immune function and inflammatory response. But he does not know how damp the transcription factors thwarts neurotoxicity.
In no way do the results suggest that aspirin conjure Huntington or other chronic neurodegenerative diseases, says a scientist pharmaceutical company who requested anonymity. The scientist who develops substitutes aspirin, said the popular painkiller has multiple effects in cell culture at concentrations used in the study. "Aspirin has been on the market for a hundred years," he said. "I think we've seen before." Nevertheless, said Johns Hopkins University researcher Jeffrey Rothstein glutamate, the results "sound really fascinating" and should be followed.
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