Minding metals: tailoring multifunctional chelating agents for neurodegenerative disease.

Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease are associated with elevated levels of iron, copper, and zinc and consequentially high levels of oxidative stress. Given the multifactorial nature of these diseases, it is becoming evident that the next generation of therapies must have multiple functions to combat multiple mechanisms of disease progression. Metal-chelating agents provide one such function as an intervention for ameliorating metal-associated damage in degenerative diseases. Targeting chelators to adjust localized metal imbalances in the brain, however, presents significant challenges. In this perspective, we focus on some noteworthy advances in the area of multifunctional metal chelators as potential therapeutic agents for neurodegenerative diseases. In addition to metal chelating ability, these agents also contain features designed to improve their uptake across the blood-brain barrier, increase their selectivity for metals in damage-prone environments, increase antioxidant capabilities, lower Abeta peptide aggregation, or inhibit disease-associated enzymes such as monoamine oxidase and acetylcholinesterase.

Cryptococcal cell morphology affects host cell interactions and pathogenicity.

Cryptococcus neoformans is a common life-threatening human fungal pathogen. The size of cryptococcal cells is typically 5 to 10 microm. Cell enlargement was observed in vivo, producing cells up to 100 microm. These morphological changes in cell size affected pathogenicity via reducing phagocytosis by host mononuclear cells, increasing resistance to oxidative and nitrosative stress, and correlated with reduced penetration of the central nervous system. Cell enlargement was stimulated by coinfection with strains of opposite mating type, and ste3aDelta pheromone receptor mutant strains had reduced cell enlargement. Finally, analysis of DNA content in this novel cell type revealed that these enlarged cells were polyploid, uninucleate, and produced daughter cells in vivo. These results describe a novel mechanism by which C. neoformans evades host phagocytosis to allow survival of a subset of the population at early stages of infection. Thus, morphological changes play unique and specialized roles during infection.

Low Molecular Weight Opioid Peptide Esters Could be Developed as a New Class of Analgesics.

Low molecular weight opioid peptide esters (OPE) could become a class of analgesics with different side effect profiles than current opiates. OPE may have sufficient plasma stability to cross the blood brain barrier (BBB), undergo ester hydrolysis and produce analgesia. OPE of dipeptides, tyr-pro and tyr-gly conjugated to ethanol have a structure similar to the anesthestic agent, etomidate. Based upon the analgesic activity of dipeptide opioids, Lipinski's criteria, and permeability of select GABA esters to cross the BBB, opioid peptides (OP) conjugated to ethanol, cholesterol or 3-glucose are lead recommendations. Preliminary animal data suggests that tyr-pro-ethyl ester crosses the BBB and unexpectedly produces hyperalgesia. Currently, there are no approved OP analgesics available for clinical use. Clinical trials of good manufacturing practice OP administered to patients suffering from chronic pain with indwelling intrathecal pumps could resolve the issue that OP may be superior to opiates and may redirect research.

Selected Gamma Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) Esters may Provide Analgesia for Some Central Pain Conditions.

Central pain is an enigmatic, intractable condition, related to destruction of thalamic areas, resulting in likely loss of inhibitory synaptic transmission mediated by GABA. It is proposed that treatment of central pain, a localized process, may be treated by GABA supplementation, like Parkinson's disease and depression. At physiologic pH, GABA exists as a zwitterion that is poorly permeable to the blood brain barrier (BBB). Because the pH of the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) is acidic relative to the plasma, ion trapping may allow a GABA ester prodrug to accumulate and be hydrolyzed within the CSF. Previous investigations with ester local anesthetics may be applicable to some GABA esters since they are weak bases, hydrolyzed by esterases and cross the BBB. Potential non-toxic GABA esters are discussed. Many GABA esters were investigated in the 1980s and it is hoped that this paper may spark renewed interest in their development.

Live Imaging of Host-Parasite Interactions in a Zebrafish Infection Model Reveals Cryptococcal Determinants of Virulence and Central Nervous System Invasion.

UNLABELLED: The human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans is capable of infecting a broad range of hosts, from invertebrates like amoebas and nematodes to standard vertebrate models such as mice and rabbits. Here we have taken advantage of a zebrafish model to investigate host-pathogen interactions of Cryptococcus with the zebrafish innate immune system, which shares a highly conserved framework with that of mammals. Through live-imaging observations and genetic knockdown, we establish that macrophages are the primary immune cells responsible for responding to and containing acute cryptococcal infections. By interrogating survival and cryptococcal burden following infection with a panel of Cryptococcus mutants, we find that virulence factors initially identified as important in causing disease in mice are also necessary for pathogenesis in zebrafish larvae. Live imaging of the cranial blood vessels of infected larvae reveals that C. neoformans is able to penetrate the zebrafish brain following intravenous infection. By studying a C. neoformans FNX1 gene mutant, we find that blood-brain barrier invasion is dependent on a known cryptococcal invasion-promoting pathway previously identified in a murine model of central nervous system invasion. The zebrafish-C. neoformans platform provides a visually and genetically accessible vertebrate model system for cryptococcal pathogenesis with many of the advantages of small invertebrates. This model is well suited for higher-throughput screening of mutants, mechanistic dissection of cryptococcal pathogenesis in live animals, and use in the evaluation of therapeutic agents. IMPORTANCE: Cryptococcus neoformans is an important opportunistic pathogen that is estimated to be responsible for more than 600,000 deaths worldwide annually. Existing mammalian models of cryptococcal pathogenesis are costly, and the analysis of important pathogenic processes such as meningitis is laborious and remains a challenge to visualize. Conversely, although invertebrate models of cryptococcal infection allow high-throughput assays, they fail to replicate the anatomical complexity found in vertebrates and, specifically, cryptococcal stages of disease. Here we have utilized larval zebrafish as a platform that overcomes many of these limitations. We demonstrate that the pathogenesis of C. neoformans infection in zebrafish involves factors identical to those in mammalian and invertebrate infections. We then utilize the live-imaging capacity of zebrafish larvae to follow the progression of cryptococcal infection in real time and establish a relevant model of the critical central nervous system infection phase of disease in a nonmammalian model.

Induction of anti-myelin antibodies in EAE and their possible role in demyelination.

Experimental allergic encephalomyelitis is characterized by invasion of lymphocytes and macrophages into the central nervous system resulting in inflammation, edema, and demyelination. Sera from Lewis rats from 7-95 days after immunization with purified guinea pig CNS myelin were examined with respect to their ability to opsonize myelin. This was correlated with the appearance of antibody components and the relative amounts of antibody to myelin basic protein (MBP) and proteolipid protein (PLP). Sera from rats 10-95 days after immunization preincubated with purified myelin induced phagocytosis of myelin by cultured macrophages with the resulting production of cholesterol ester. This opsonization activity as measured by the percentage of cholesterol esterified reached a peak at 26-27 days after immunization but remained significantly elevated up to 95 days post-immunization compared to the activity of serum from the Freund's adjuvant-injected controls. Immunoblots of the sera revealed a gradual increase in antibody activity against myelin components. ELISA assays for MBP and PLP antibody showed a similar pattern. Antibody to galactocerebroside (GC) was not detected by immunostains nor by the ELISA assay. Areas of demyelination were observed histologically by luxol-fast blue stained spinal cords up to 60 days post-immunization. These results indicate that antibodies to myelin protein when given access to myelin through or within the blood brain barrier could initiate or enhance the phagocytic response by peripheral or resident macrophages.

Perioperative cerebrospinal fluid and plasma inflammatory markers after orthopedic surgery.

BACKGROUND: Postoperative delirium is prevalent in older patients and associated with worse outcomes. Recent data in animal studies demonstrate increases in inflammatory markers in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) even after aseptic surgery, suggesting that inflammation of the central nervous system may be part of the pathogenesis of postoperative cognitive changes. We investigated the hypothesis that neuroinflammation was an important cause for postoperative delirium and cognitive dysfunction after major non-cardiac surgery. METHODS: After Institutional Review Board approval and informed consent, we recruited patients undergoing major knee surgery who received spinal anesthesia and femoral nerve block with intravenous sedation. All patients had an indwelling spinal catheter placed at the time of spinal anesthesia that was left in place for up to 24 h. Plasma and CSF samples were collected preoperatively and at 3, 6, and 18 h postoperatively. Cytokine levels were measured using ELISA and Luminex. Postoperative delirium was determined using the confusion assessment method, and cognitive dysfunction was measured using validated cognitive tests (word list, verbal fluency test, digit symbol test). RESULTS: Ten patients with complete datasets were included. One patient developed postoperative delirium, and six patients developed postoperative cognitive dysfunction. Postoperatively, at different time points, statistically significant changes compared to baseline were present in IL-5, IL-6, I-8, IL-10, monocyte chemotactic protein (MCP)-1, macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)-1α, IL-6/IL-10, and receptor for advanced glycation end products in plasma and in IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, MCP-1, MIP-1α, MIP-1β, IL-8/IL-10, and TNF-α in CSF. CONCLUSIONS: Substantial pro- and anti-inflammatory activity in the central neural system after surgery was found. If confirmed by larger studies, persistent changes in cytokine levels may serve as biomarkers for novel clinical trials.

Introduction of novel video-based tasks to clinical fMRI: Comparing traditional fMRI tasks with novel video-based tasks for mapping brain language areas

Recently, blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become a routine clinical procedure for localization of language and motor brain regions and has been replacing more invasive preoperative procedures. However, the fMRI results from these tasks are not always reproducible even from the same patient. Evaluating the reproducibility of language and speech mapping is especially complicated due to the complex brain circuitry that may become activated during the functional task. Non-language areas such as sensory, attention, decision-making, and motor brain regions may also be activated in addition to the specific language regions during a traditional sentence-completion task. In this study, I test a new approach, which utilizes 4-minute video-based tasks, to map language and speech brain regions for patients undergoing brain surgery. Results from 35 subjects have shown that the video-based task activates Wernicke’s area, as well as Broca’s area in most subjects. The computed laterality indices, which indicate the dominant hemisphere from that functional task, have indicated left dominance from the video-based tasks. This study has shown that the video-based task may be an alternative method for localization of language and speech brain regions for patients who are unable to complete the sentence-completion task.

High-speed label-free functional photoacoustic microscopy of mouse brain in action.

We present fast functional photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) for three-dimensional high-resolution, high-speed imaging of the mouse brain, complementary to other imaging modalities. We implemented a single-wavelength pulse-width-based method with a one-dimensional imaging rate of 100 kHz to image blood oxygenation with capillary-level resolution. We applied PAM to image the vascular morphology, blood oxygenation, blood flow and oxygen metabolism in both resting and stimulated states in the mouse brain.