Coysh, Thomas;
Mead, Simon;
(2022)
The Future of Seed Amplification Assays and Clinical Trials.
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience
, 14
, Article 872629. 10.3389/fnagi.2022.872629.
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Abstract
Prion-like seeded misfolding of host proteins is the leading hypothesised cause of neurodegenerative diseases. The exploitation of the mechanism in the protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) and real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC) assays have transformed prion disease research and diagnosis and have steadily become more widely used for research into other neurodegenerative disorders. Clinical trials in adult neurodegenerative diseases have been expensive, slow, and disappointing in terms of clinical benefits. There are various possible factors contributing to the failure to identify disease-modifying treatments for adult neurodegenerative diseases, some of which include: limited accuracy of antemortem clinical diagnosis resulting in the inclusion of patients with the "incorrect" pathology for the therapeutic; the role of co-pathologies in neurodegeneration rendering treatments targeting one pathology alone ineffective; treatment of the primary neurodegenerative process too late, after irreversible secondary processes of neurodegeneration have become established or neuronal loss is already extensive; and preclinical models used to develop treatments not accurately representing human disease. The use of seed amplification assays in clinical trials offers an opportunity to tackle these problems by sensitively detecting in vivo the proteopathic seeds thought to be central to the biology of neurodegenerative diseases, enabling improved diagnostic accuracy of the main pathology and co-pathologies, and very early intervention, particularly in patients at risk of monogenic forms of neurodegeneration. The possibility of quantifying proteopathic seed load, and its reduction by treatments, is an attractive pharmacodynamic biomarker in the preclinical and early clinical stages of drug development. Here we review some potential applications of seed amplification assays in clinical trials.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Future of Seed Amplification Assays and Clinical Trials |
| Location: | Switzerland |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fnagi.2022.872629 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2022.872629 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2022 Coysh and Mead. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| Keywords: | RT-QuIC, biomarker, neurodegenerative diseases, pre-symptomatic carriers, pre-symptomatic diagnosis, prion, protein aggregation, seed amplification assays |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Institute of Prion Diseases > MRC Prion Unit at UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Institute of Prion Diseases |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10152744 |
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