ALS is an incurable, paralyzing neurodegenerative disorder that strikes 5 persons in every 100,000. The disease commonly affects healthy people in the most active period of their lives − without warning or previous family history.
Researchers from VIB (the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology), under the direction of Prof. Peter Carmeliet (Catholic University of Leuven), have previously shown the importance of the VEGF protein in this disease. Now, new research from this group shows that rats with a severe form of ALS live longer following the administration of the VEGF protein as a remedy. These results open up new possibilities for the use of VEGF in the treatment of ALS.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) can strike anyone. The Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung, Russian composer Dimitri Sjostakowitz, the legendary New York Yankee baseball player Lou Gehrig, and astro-physicist Stephen Hawkins have all been afflicted with ALS. In addition, an unusually large number of Italian professional soccer players, airline pilots, and soldiers from the Golf War have been stricken by this fatal disease. About half of them have died within three years − some even in the first year − and usually as a consequence of asphyxiation, while still ‘in full possession of their faculties’.
In ALS, the patient’s nerve bundles that extend to the muscles deteriorate. This causes the patient to lose control over his/her muscles, growing progressively paralyzed − but remaining (disconcertingly) fully alert mentally. The originating mechanism of this deadly disease of deterioration − which has an enormous medico-social impact − remains obscure. At present, the disease is totally untreatable − causing many ALS patients to choose euthanasia, a very controversial solution. However, previous genetic research by Peter Carmeliet and his team at the Catholic University of Leuven has led to the surprising discovery that the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays a major role in this disease.
VEGF is a signaling substance that controls the growth of blood vessels. To a large extent, a tissue in need of oxygen manufactures the protein, thereby developing new blood vessels so that the need for oxygen again diminishes. VEGF also helps neurons survive under stressful conditions. Last year, the work of Peter Carmeliet’s team showed that persons who produce too little VEGF − due to certain variations in the gene that codes for VEGF − have a greater chance of developing ALS. Earlier this year, their research proved that gene therapy with the VEGF gene increased the life expectancy of ALS mice by 30%. But gene therapy is still a controversial method of treatment, whose path to the clinic can be quite long.