Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 14 April 2000:
Vol. 288. no. 5464, pp. 283 - 284
DOI: 10.1126/science.288.5464.283
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Perspectives

NEUROBIOLOGY:
Stay the Executioner's Hand

Mark E. Gurney, Alfredo G. Tomasselli, Robert L. Heinrikson

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease after the American baseball star who died of the illness, is characterized by death of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. In a Perspective, Gurney and colleagues discuss new findings (Li et al.) showing that in a mouse model of ALS, survival can be prolonged by administering an inhibitor of caspases, the enzymes that act as the cell's executioner in apoptosis. The new work demonstrates that the motor neurons die through apoptosis and that blocking this programmed cell death with a caspase inhibitor might be one approach to treating ALS patients.

M. E. Gurney is at Genomics and A. G. Tomasselli and R. L. Heinrikson are at Protein Sciences, Pharmacia Corp., 301 Henrietta Street, Kalamazoo, MI 49007, USA. E-mail: mark.e.gurney{at}am.pnu.com

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Rats Expressing Human Cytosolic Copper-Zinc Superoxide Dismutase Transgenes with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Associated Mutations Develop Motor Neuron Disease.
M. Nagai, M. Aoki, I. Miyoshi, M. Kato, P. Pasinelli, N. Kasai, R. H. Brown Jr, and Y. Itoyama (2001)
J. Neurosci. 21, 9246-9254
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)