Parkinson's-Fighting Steroid Is Identified in Fast Food Fish

[Hum]

The spiny dogfish shark, which has been marketed as "rock salmon" and reportedly sold as a fast food fish, turns out to carry a potent toxin-fighting steroid that shows promise in treating Parkinson's and a certain form of dementia, new research finds.

 

Concerns over fast food and fishing of the shark, which is now listed as being vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN, have been erased since scientists have synthesized the steroid—squalamine—in a lab, so no spiny dogfish sharks have to die in order for people to benefit from the compound.

 

Results of the new research on squalamine, conducted by an international team, are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

"The synthesized steroid is identical to the molecule produced in the shark," co-senior author Michael Zasloff told Seeker. "It is a beautiful white powder. It will be administered as an oral tablet in human clinical trials."

 

Zasloff, a professor of surgery and pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and a scientific director of the MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute, has been studying the spiny dogfish shark for well over two decades. The shark may live up to 100 years, and is suspected of having the longest known gestation period of animal: 18 to 24 months.

 

One reason for the longevity is that "the shark is remarkably resistant to infections, despite having a primitive immune system," Zasloff said. "We suspected that this animal made protective compounds."

 

In earlier research, he and his colleagues discovered squalamine in the shark and determined that the steroid had antimicrobial properties. The researchers then determined its chemical structure and devised a way to synthesize it from a plant steroid.

 

For the new study, lead author Michele Perni, Zasloff and their team genetically programmed nematode worms (C. elegans is a popular animal model for research projects) to over-express a protein called alpha-synuclein. Clustering of this protein happens with Parkinson's as well as with Lewy Body Dementia, a condition said to have afflicted the late entertainer Robin Williams.

 

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[kaborka]

Thanks for posting this. I've had PD for 9 years. This really looks promising.