New drug developed to suppress epileptic seizures
New drug developed to suppress epileptic seizures
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An increase of microRNA-203 in the brain causes epilepsy.
- Intranasal administration
of a new drug controling microRNA inhibits seizures. 
A
new drug that suppresses epileptic seizures by controlling microRNA is developed.
This intranasal medicine is expected to be a great help to the treatment of
epilepsy patients.
A research team led by Professors Sang-kun
Lee and Kon Chu of the department of neurology at Seoul National University
Hospital (SNUH) has successfully found that microRNA-203 expression increases
in epilepsy patients and developed a new drug that will suppress this action.
The research team discovered microRNA-203 (mir-203) inhibits the expression
of glycine recepter-β (GlyR beta) subunit (GLRB) involving the suppression
of nerve cell activation. In the brain with epilepsy, nerve cells get overactivated
as GLRB is reduced with an increase of mir-203, resulting in a seizure. The
research team developed a drug that suppresses mir-203 and sprayed it nasally
to confirm that the frequency of seizures dropped by more than 70%. Moreover,
the expression of GLRB in the brain with epilepsy is returned to the normal
level and the effect lasted more than two weeks after the administration of
the new drug. The research team has also recently carried out a clinical trial
of intranasal administration to primates after identifying the mechanism of
delivering the drug into the brain.