FDA-Approved Drug to Treat Liver Infections Could Curb Alzheimer's

A study published in Science Translational Medicine suggests lonafarnib, a U.S. Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-cleared liver infection drug, could have unexpected therapeutic benefits for people with Alzheimer's, reports the London Daily Mail . Mice were engineered to develop tangles of tau, a protein thought to cause Alzheimer's, which lonafarnib prevented. The drug was originally designed to treat hepatitis D, and University of California researchers observed a new pathway in lonafarnib that promotes the degradation of tau via lysosomes, which breaks up tau proteins by preventing certain enzymes and proteins from interacting with neurons. Regular lonafarnib doses boosted tau degradation in the mice, while also preserving brain size and preventing behavioral deficits, like obsessive circling in mice with dementia. The researchers think the pathway could be a "druggable target" in tauopathies and other neurodegenerative maladies marked by dysfunctional protein degradation.