title: Therapeutic progress in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-beginning to learning.
abstract: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease associated with motor neuron degeneration, muscle weakness, paralysis and finally death. The proposed mechanisms of ALS include glutamate excitotoxicity, oxidative stress, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, apoptosis and proteasomal dysfunction. Although numerous pathological mechanisms have been explained, ALS remains incurable disease because of failure of clinical trials and lack of any effective therapy. The rapid advancement in genetic discoveries in ALS emphasizes the point that ALS is a multi-subtype syndrome rather than a single disease. This can be argued as one of the single reason why many previous therapeutic drug trials have failed. Efforts to develop novel ALS treatments which target specific pathomechanisms are currently being pursued. Herein, we review the recent discovery and preclinical characterization of neuroprotective compounds and compare their effects on disease onset, duration and survival. Furthermore, the structure-activity relationships of these agents are analyzed with the overall goal of developing a screening strategy for future clinical applications.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Basic Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi 10025, India.
authors.forename: Vijay
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Basic Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi 10025, India.
authors.forename: Asimul
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Islam
authors.affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Basic Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi 10025, India. Electronic address: mihassan@jmi.ac.in.
authors.forename: Md Imtaiyaz
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Hassan
authors.affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Basic Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi 10025, India.
authors.forename: Faizan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ahmad
mesh_terms: D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D000818:Animals; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical; D006801:Humans
keywords: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; Neuroprotective agents; Pathomechanisms; Stem cell therapy; Structure-activity; Therapeutic intervention