A study finds that human activity has led to a severe decrease in Caribbean shark abundance.
Image credit: Sean Mattson (International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Cali, Colombia).
Edited by Thomas C. Südhof, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, and approved December 21, 2007 (received for review August 24, 2007)
Abstract
ALS is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder with no effective treatment. In the present study, we found that daily doses of lithium, leading to plasma levels ranging from 0.4 to 0.8 mEq/liter, delay disease progression in human patients affected by ALS. None of the patients treated with lithium died during the 15 months of the follow-up, and disease progression was markedly attenuated when compared with age-, disease duration-, and sex-matched control patients treated with riluzole for the same amount of time. In a parallel study on a genetic ALS animal model, the G93A mouse, we found a marked neuroprotection by lithium, which delayed disease onset and duration and augmented the life span. These effects were concomitant with activation of autophagy and an increase in the number of the mitochondria in motor neurons and suppressed reactive astrogliosis. Again, lithium reduced the slow necrosis characterized by mitochondrial vacuolization and increased the number of neurons counted in lamina VII that were severely affected in saline-treated G93A mice. After lithium administration in G93A mice, the number of these neurons was higher even when compared with saline-treated WT. All these mechanisms may contribute to the effects of lithium, and these results offer a promising perspective for the treatment of human patients affected by ALS.
Footnotes
- ↵‡To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: f.fornai{at}med.unipi.it
Author contributions: F.F., P. Longone, C.I., L.M., S.R., and A.P. designed research; O.K., M.F., M.L.M., G.L., A.S., N.B., P. Lenzi, N.M., and G.S. performed research; L.C., M.F., M.L.M., G.L., P. Lenzi, G.S., C.I., L.M., S.R., and A.P. analyzed data; and F.F. and P. Longone wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0708022105/DC1.
- Received August 24, 2007.
- © 2008 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
Lithium delays progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Sign up for Article Alerts
Jump to section
You May Also be Interested in
A study suggests that male dragonflies will evolve smaller melanin wing patches by 2070 as global warming continues.
Image credit: Pixabay/liggraphy.
The largest pandemic-related declines in nitrogen dioxide pollution occurred in the least White census tracts in the United States, which nonetheless faced higher levels during the pandemic than most White communities before the pandemic.
Image credit: Pixabay/SD-Pictures.
The approach can enable faster, more diverse study enrollments. But uncontrolled environments could also potentially lead to faulty data and flawed conclusions.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Andrey_Popov.
Genome editing technology has grown too quickly, and stakeholders in the debate are too diverse, for current approaches to establish a robust regulatory regime.
Image credit: Shutterstock/vchal.