At 03:36 AM 01/02/2000 -0500, I wrote:
>
>The following studies found that HupA is also neuroprotective.
>
IAN: Correction: two of the following three studies
found HupA to be neuroprotective while one found that
HupA protected non-brain cells from oxidative stress
and the researchers extrapolated from that that such
effects may be effective against Alzheimer's disease,
which involves brain-cell death. Another relevant study:
=============================================================
Life Sci 1994;54(14):991-7
Huperzine A as a pretreatment candidate drug against
nerve agent toxicity.
Grunwald J, Raveh L, Doctor BP, Ashani Y
Israel Institute for Biological Research, Ness-Ziona.
Huperzine A (HUP) is a naturally-occurring, potent, reversible
inhibitor of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) that crosses the blood-
brain barrier. To examine its ability to protect against nerve
agent poisoning, HUP was administered i.p. to mice, and the s.c.
LD50 of soman was determined at various time intervals after
pretreatment. Results were compared to those obtained for animals
treated with physostigmine. A protective ratio of approximately
2 was maintained for at least 6 hr after a single injection of
HUP, without the need for any post-challenge drug therapy. By
contrast, pretreatment with physostigmine increased the LD50 of
soman by 1.4- to 1.5-fold for only up to 90 min. The long-lasting
antidotal efficacy displayed by HUP correlated with the time
course of the blood-AChE inhibition. The results suggest that
the protection of animals by HUP from soman poisoning was achieved
by temporarily sequestering the active site region of the
physiologically important AChE.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=8139389&form=6&db=m&
Dopt=b
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