title: Simvastatin prolongs survival times in prion infections of the central nervous system.
abstract: Prion diseases are fatal and at present there are neither cures nor palliative therapies known/available, which delay disease onset or progression. Cholesterol-lowering drugs have been reported to inhibit prion replication in infected cell cultures and to modulate inflammatory reactions. We aimed to determine whether simvastatin-treatment could delay disease onset in a murine prion model. Groups of mice were intracerebrally infected with two doses of scrapie strain 139A. Simvastatin-treatment commenced 100 days postinfection. The treatment did not affect deposition of misfolded prion protein PrP(res). However, expression of marker proteins for glia activation like major histocompatibility class II and galectin-3 was found to be affected. Analysis of brain cholesterol synthesis and metabolism revealed a mild reduction in cholesterol precursor levels, whereas levels of cholesterol and cholesterol metabolites were unchanged. Simvastatin-treatment significantly delayed disease progression and prolonged survival times in established prion infection of the CNS (p < or = 0.0003). The results suggest that modulation of glial responses and the therapeutic benefit observed in our murine prion model of simvastatin is not due to the cholesterol-lowering effect of this drug.
authors.affiliation: Project Neurodegenerative Diseases, Robert-Koch-Institute, Nordufer 20, 13353 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Simon Wing Fai
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Mok
authors.forename: Karin M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Thelen
authors.forename: Constanze
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Riemer
authors.forename: Theresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bamme
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gültner
authors.forename: Dieter
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lütjohann
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Baier
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015153:Blotting, Western; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism; D001923:Brain Chemistry; D002494:Central Nervous System Infections / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000401:mortality; D002784:Cholesterol / Q000378:metabolism; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D051379:Mice; D017096:Prion Diseases / Q000178:diet therapy* / Q000401:mortality; D019821:Simvastatin / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D015996:Survival Rate
chemical_list: D002784:Cholesterol; D019821:Simvastatin