Researchers screening more than 1000 potential drugs for spinal cord injury treatment identified an existing one – cimetidine – that improved spinal repair in zebrafish. The results, published in the journal Theranostics, showed that the drug also helped improve recovery of movement and reduce the extent of spinal cord damage when tested in spinal-injured mice.
Healing of spinal cord injuries can be inefficient due to inflammation caused by an overreaction of the immune system. Anti-inflammatories that suppress the whole immune response also inhibit the immune cells which promote repair.
The University of Edinburgh-led study tested multiple drugs in zebrafish larvae for their ability to prevent excessive inflammation during an immune response. Scientists discovered that cimetidine acts by helping to regulate histamine levels.
The findings have enabled the team to pinpoint a specific signalling pathway that moderates the immune response after spinal injury to support repair.
The investigators say that other drugs that work in a similar way could also be tested for their ability to support recovery from spinal injury. They caution that further studies are needed to investigate their impact in human clinical trials. The researchers add that the study highlights the usefulness of zebrafish in the drug discovery process.
The research team included scientists from the University of Edinburgh, the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre and Technische Universität Dresden.
Source: University of Edinburgh
