Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have discovered that the antibiotic ceftriaxone may have an unanticipated use: treating Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, epilepsy, stroke, dementia and other diseases caused by the deterioration of neurons in the brain.

Currently, there are few treatment options for stopping this degeneration, and those currently being evaluated have shown minimal or no beneficial activity. But Paul B. Fisher, director of the VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine, and his colleagues have found that ceftriaxone may serve as a potential therapy against neurodegenerative disease caused by glutamate toxicity.

The amino acid Glutamate is important in nerve transmission at the synapse, the region that connects one neuron to another in the brain. An excess of glutamate can damage, even kill, neurons. But ceftriaxone stimulates glutamate transport, thus avoiding excessive accumulations of the chemical.

"This work not only has implications for the field of neurodegeneration and neurobiology, but may also help us more clearly understand brain cancer, including malignant glioma, an invariably fatal tumor, and how it impacts brain function," said Fisher. Future studies will examine ways to modify the structure of ceftriaxone through medicinal chemistry to create molecules that are pharmacologically improved. Currently, ceftriaxone needs to be injected. An oral form of the drug would be a preferential way to treat patients. Read the VCU press release.