ABSTRACT
Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, affecting approximately 36 million people worldwide. To date there is no preventive or curative treatment available for AD, and in absence of major progress in therapeutic development, AD manifests a concrete socioeconomic threat. The awareness of the growing problem of AD is increasing, exemplified by the recent G8 Dementia Summit, a meeting held in order to set the stage and steer the compass for the future. Simultaneously, and paradoxically, we have seen key players in the pharmaceutical industry that have recently closed or significantly decreased their R&D spending on AD and other CNS disorders. Given the pressing need for new treatments in this area, other actors need to step-in and enter this drug discovery arena complementing the industrial efforts, in order to turn biological and technological progress into novel therapeutics. In this article, we present an example of a novel drug discovery initiative that in a non-profit setting, aims to integrate with both preclinical and clinical academic groups and pharmaceutical industry to explore the therapeutic potential of new concepts in patients, using novel biology, state of the art technologies and rapid concept testing.
ABSTRACT
mRNA encoding the human NPY Y1 and NPY Y2 receptors were detected in cerebral, meningeal, and coronary arteries using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). In addition, the trigeminal and superior cervical ganglia were positive for both receptors. In some arteries and in SK-N-MC cells only mRNA encoding the NPY Y1 was detected. Besides the expected NPY Y1 PCR products, an additional 97 bp longer amplicon originating from an alternative splicing event was found in most tissues studied. Antibodies directed against the NPY Y1 receptor revealed immunostaining mainly in the smooth muscle layer of blood vessels whereas antibodies against the NPY Y2 receptor showed immunostaining in nerve cell bodies.
